Episode Transcript
[00:00:16] Speaker A: Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm your host, Graham Richmond, and this episode is part of our Admissions Director Q and A series. Today I'm delighted to welcome Melissa Rapp and Associate Dean of Graduate Admissions for Guzuera Business School at Emory University.
Melissa leads strategy, recruitment and enrollment across MBA and specialized master's programs. She brings more than 20 years of experience in graduate management, education and enrollment leadership. Prior to joining Guizuera, Melissa held leadership roles at several top institutions, including serving as Director of Admissions for the full time MBA and MSMS programs at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Melissa holds a BA in Mass Communications and Media from the University of Kansas, an MA in Liberal Arts from Baker University, and a Doctor of Education in Higher Ed Administration from the University of Georgia. Welcome to the Clear Admit Podcast, Melissa. It's great to see you.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Thanks, Graham. It's always a highlight of my year to get to be on the Clear Admit podcast.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: So I have to say I gave a little bit of a background. I hope I didn't steal all the thunder, but I wondered if you could just kind of take our listeners through your background and the path that sort of led you into this current role at Emory.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: Yeah, so at the University of Kansas, I was a communications major primarily because I love to talk.
I also served as Panhellenic president, which KU has a pretty big Greek system. And that role as Panhellenic president allowed me or gave me access to really high level university administrators. So think the dean of students, the chancellor. And it was at that point that I realized that people got paid to hang out on college campuses and I just knew that that's what I wanted. I loved my college experience. I love being on a campus. There is something really magical in the air at a place where people are learning and investing in themselves and growing and thinking big thoughts and dreaming big dreams. And so I almost immediately took a job in the higher education space. I initially was in undergraduate admissions for a small liberal arts school.
It gave me the opportunity to see some of the differences between a big state school and a smaller school.
Gave me some more exposure. I got to do a lot of different things.
And when I then took a break from my career, when I decided to go back to work, I knew I wanted to continue on in admissions. It's just the perfect fit for all the things I love to do.
That intersection of people and strategy every day, getting to think about the marketing, the communications, the evaluation requirements, the being out in front of people and also being able to do, you know, Deeply, deep thinking work.
It combines a lot of things that I love.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: Yeah, it is interesting. You talk about the. The sort of energy on a college campus and I've always, sometimes people to say to me, oh, what would you ever do if you ever were to kind of leave your job at Clear Admit? And that's the only thing I could think of would be going to work at a university. I just think it's so. So it's great. And I will say, one of the reasons I love the work that we do is that we do have this sort of interaction with people as they journey off to business school and get to see that. And I'm sure you do on your end with all the applications that come across your desk. Let's talk a little bit about. More about admissions, because you sort of started to comment on this, but I'm kind of wondering.
I feel like I have a sense of why you like admissions, but what sort of keeps you excited about it today? Because, I mean, you've been doing this for like 20 years, right? You've seen it all. Right, so what keeps you on your toes? Or what do you still like about it?
[00:04:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I started admissions in the 1900s when in order for a student to show that they were interested, they had to receive a piece of mail and they ripped off a postcard and they filled it out, they found a stamp, they went to a mailbox and they sent it back to us. They had to take so many steps to even engage with us. And now, you know, your finger slips on a Pandora ad and suddenly you're getting mail, your email from a school. So I have been doing this a very long time, but at its heart, admissions is about possibility.
And you meet people at this point in time, this moment in their life, where they're thinking about, what could I do next?
And you get to help them think sometimes bigger than they've ever thought before.
It keeps it interesting because it's never the same. Even year to year, sometimes even within a year, it changes.
Candidates change, their expectations change. I've seen different generations come through this process.
The career landscape changed. Technology has certainly changed to that.
Being present in a point in someone's life where, you know, they're. They're really thinking about what. What is possible. For me, that's really exciting.
And then on the flip side of that, I've always known.
I've worked for some incredible institutions. I'm very lucky in that regard. And I've always known that I've had a small part, but a part in setting people up to do amazing things, to go on, to be really impactful leaders, to serve organizations, to change society.
That's what really keeps me energized and excited, is those two sort of, the beginning, it's possibility, but at the other end, it is transformation.
It is somebody doing something that when I met them, they didn't think they could do. And because of, you know, I let them in, I opened the gate for them.
They did the work and the program provided the opportunities.
But if I hadn't met them, who knows what would have happened?
[00:06:52] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great way to frame the work that you do. I guess one thing I'm now, you know, now that you talk about it, I mean, it just. It sounds really inspiring. But I also know that applicants tend to have a lot of misconceptions, right. About the admissions process. So, you know, they might think, oh, no, admissions officers are there to kind of filter people out, not bring people in, you know, or something like that. Right. So what would be, if anything, what's sort of a misconception that you think applicants tend to have about either admissions officers or the admissions process?
[00:07:24] Speaker B: I mean, I think you've hit it. I think people think that we're looking for a reason to say no.
And that is the opposite of my team and pretty much everyone I've ever met who works in admissions. If anything, we are the biggest cheerleaders, advocators, supporters of our applicants. We want to see people succeed. I mean, think about my previous answer.
I want to see you think about big possibilities. I want to see people go on to do great things. And so, you know, candidates spend a lot of time thinking about, oh, how am I going to impress these people? And I know that they're going to pick up on this one bad test I took when I was in college. And it's like, you know, we're not. We're not not looking for reasons to say no. We're really looking for the right way to get the right people in our programs.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: Okay, so you were talking earlier about the kind of way that the process of getting an application submitted and getting an admissions kind of response has changed from the kind of postcard you mail in, paper, envelope that comes in the mail, et cetera. Now everything's on the Internet, obviously. And I'm kind of wondering if you would just talk a little bit more about how your thinking has changed about admissions or even just how the process has changed for you in terms of.
I feel like there's some new Tools at your disposal. But obviously candidates are doing new things too. So I'm kind of curious what you think about that.
[00:08:57] Speaker B: I do think throughout my career I've seen this evolution towards more and more holistic review. That's sort of a catchphrase in admissions. But I do think that we spend more time thinking about the qualities that a candidate brings to our community.
Then I think I'm thinking about it more now than I was at the beginning of my career. I think at the earlier on in my career, it was much more about what kind of grades did you have and what were your test scores like. And those were kind of the guiding factors in an evaluation.
Whereas now I think we've all realized that, especially in the graduate space, careers are not as linear as they used to be. Even grades are not as straightforward as they used to be.
We now are test optional at Goizueta, so we're not relying on a test score necessarily for understanding someone's academic readiness.
So now I'm thinking more about not just what's happened, but why it happened, what choices a candidate made, why they made those choices, really understanding their personal story.
I think the other thing that has more recently changed is AI and its impact on the application process. And every conference, every meeting, every conversation I've had this year feels like somebody's brought up AI, and for good reason.
It's this huge thing impacting society right now, and it feels a little like the wild, wild West. We don't exactly know what all it can do or the best ways to use it, or the ethics that should be employed around it.
So now we're thinking about whereas before we would want to see an application be polished, we wanted to know somebody had taken the time to fix every little thing. And now I'm almost looking for something that tells me a human did it, that there's evidence that it's not overly polished because AI has this ability to be a candidate if you want it to be.
So that's probably the biggest change and the thing that I think will continue to have an impact for the foreseeable future.
[00:11:30] Speaker A: Yeah. And I do think, you know, we see a lot of programs relying a bit more on video or interviews or things that are by nature going to be more authentic. So I presume that'll continue.
What's something that you think applicants tend to worry about far more than they should.
[00:11:47] Speaker B: I think this goes back to what we were just talking about, being too perfect, that if they're not perfect, if they didn't have a.
A 3.9 GPA and great GMAT score and a perfect career that they can show progression in that they're not going to get into any schools.
That's just not true. I do have thousands of applications that I've reviewed. I have a lot of perspective on the range of people who have come to business school, succeeded at business school, and gone on to do amazing things.
And in that bundle of thousands of people who I've personally witnessed go through this transformation, there are people who didn't do great in their undergraduate career.
There are people who switched jobs or left a job or got fired from a job. There are people who, you know, didn't take a standardized test or did really poorly on a standardized test.
[00:12:55] Speaker A: Right.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: The candidates who are.
There's just no perfect candidate.
Even the candidates who, on paper look perfect.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:05] Speaker B: When we're getting to know them, there's always something. There's always something because candidates are human.
And to spend a whole lot of time and energy wondering if your essay sounds impressive enough or if your profile matches what admissions is looking for is kind of a waste because we don't have one thing that we're looking for.
We're looking to build a diverse class.
And I know diversity also sort of a buzzword. And people are like, well, what does that even mean anymore?
But what it means for our students is that we've taken the time to find people who will contribute to the community in meaningful ways, who will engage with their classmates in ways that challenge them and how they think.
If you come to business school, you are coming to learn how to think differently, because you've seen that the education that you got previously has you pretty good at thinking one way.
But you found you've arrived at a place in time in your career where you need something else.
You need another way to think about things. So whether that's you were trained in marketing and you need to be able to think in a financial way, or you're an engineer and you're trained to solve a problem in one particular way, and you realize that framework doesn't help you manage people.
I need a new way to think.
I need all of those different types of people in the MBA class or in a master's class to develop that, to help students develop that new way of thinking.
So I don't want perfect candidates. I want real people whose maybe their career has been a little messy, but they've made good choices or they didn't do great in their undergrad, but now look at, look at them now. I want you to bring all of that to our community because that's what makes it a rich and vibrant and exciting place to be.
[00:15:28] Speaker A: And I feel like that's something that's people sort of underestimate about business school. Like, I think that we see the kind of what I would call counting stats of, oh, there, this many countries represented or, you know, whatever, this many people from this major or that. But I just, when I think back to my own experience in business school, you know, I had. It was put on a learning team and there was like an architect, a Peace Corps person, somebody worked in finance, and then, you know, a consultant. And I came from like a sort of a startup tech background. Right. So it just. That diversity was what made the experience because you have people pushing back on the way you think. Like you just said, you know, you're looking for a new way to think, new way to solve problems. So with that in mind, as I'm waxing poetic about my time in school, when alumni come back to Guera, you know, what's something they often tell you that they didn't fully appreciate while they were students?
[00:16:21] Speaker B: I think the number one thing that we hear about is the level of access that they had as a student. One, they didn't expect to have it, and two, they didn't realize when they were students how valuable it would be as an alum. And so when I'm talking about access at Goizueta, it's completely normal for a student to just walk into a professor's office or to text a professor on their cell phone to ask an alum for an advice, to sit down with a career coach once, twice, three times a week to spend hours with their classmates.
Because we've been really intentional about the size of our program, our faculty to student ratio is very favorable for the students.
Our faculty are very invested in the teaching side. And faculty usually have a couple responsibilities. They're researching their teaching and their contributing service to the university.
What I've seen at Goizuwaita more than anywhere are the faculty being really excited to be in the classroom, wanting to develop personal relationships with our students.
Those relationships continue on far past graduation.
And because our faculty are so dynamic and have done so many things and Atlanta is where we're located, the faculty's ability to connect our students and alumni with meaningful connections within the Atlanta community, within the business world, continues to pay off for years.
And so I think candidates don't understand the level of access that they're going to have. And it's sort of a snowball effect and that snowball never melts. You get to have that access the whole time. You're an alum as well.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: Got it. So, you know, now you're reminding me of a lot of things about, you know, I'm just thinking about the campus and so hopefully we'll get into some of that because there's more that I want to hear from you on that. But just briefly, what is a stereotype about Glysueta Emory, you know, that, that you'd love to debunk?
[00:18:57] Speaker B: I'm. I'm going to say that it is a smaller MBA program or a smaller master's program means a smaller experience.
The size of our programs does not mean a contraction in the experiences or the level of support that a student receives.
In fact, it's almost.
This may sound counterintuitive, but it's the opposite.
I would argue that because we're smaller, we're able to amplify the experience in ways other places can't.
Because if you want to be the leader of a club, you're not going to have to fight to do that. You are going to get to lead something while you're here.
You are going to get to know the faculty and you're going to get to again, develop a relationship with them that you will use and value for years.
You will have more support when it comes to thinking about your career and preparing for your next job and all the jobs that follow it. You don't have to choose between scale and access or level of experience.
[00:20:22] Speaker A: And I would say, I mean, I don't know the exact number, you know, for this coming year, but you guys have always been, you know, somewhere between 100 and 150 students or somewhere in there, right?
[00:20:30] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:20:31] Speaker A: I mean, it's a small program and I've always heard, what I've heard is, you know, kind of concierge service. Right. Because you're not one of a thousand students in a program. But having been to your campus, I've seen the facilities and it obviously has everything that any top ranked full time MBA would have. So I guess that's a good segue into this next question, which is I'd love to know more about the broader region, so Atlanta, or even Georgia, the Southeast, and the role that this all plays in the student experience at school.
[00:21:07] Speaker B: Sure.
Before I talk about Atlanta, I do want to say we are usually around 100 to 150 students in our two year MBA program, but we do also have our one year MBA program.
The unique thing about the one year program is it starts in May and it goes for almost exactly a year. You graduate the next May and during that summer. And that class is somewhere usually 40 to 50 students in the summer.
Those are the only students on campus.
Talk about getting a lot of attention.
They have it all.
But then when they start their core classes end in August, when they start their electives, they're actually taking those with our returning two year MBAs.
[00:21:53] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:21:54] Speaker B: You're really getting access to a bigger network even than your class size.
Because of our portfolio, you're taking classes with multiple different programs, which also gives you a lot of nice connections as well.
Atlanta has been a treat for me to get to know. I'm not an Atlanta native. You mentioned I work at Kellogg. I'm a Chicago girl, I'm a Midwest person.
So moving to Atlanta was really an experience that has taught me a lot. It is a city unlike any other city I've ever been in. It has such a unique diversity to it and the culture and the city itself is just has so much energy right now. It is really growing. The people are dynamic. There's a whole variety of people who are moving into the area and that's really giving it sort of a fun, fresh vibe. There's a lot of investment right now in Atlanta. It has for many years been a major business market. And I think people underappreciate the extraordinary mix of Fortune 500 companies, entrepreneurs, nonprofit, healthcare. Of course, Emory is a behemoth in the healthcare industry.
Technology companies, global brands, they're all here and they all have goizoeta alums working there.
We bring their CEOs to campus to speak.
It really creates opportunities for our students to engage with the businesses while they're here learning and of course, sometimes after graduation.
We've done a lot of work recently to think about and provide opportunities for our students to integrate the different areas of learning. So our core classes, our core curriculum are based on the different aspects of business, finance, marketing, accounting, all those things that you think of.
What we really wanted to do was provide some opportunities for students to use all of that together, which we've been doing for a long time with our Impact project, which is where students work with a company on an actual problem. They sign NDAs. It's very legitimately working with a company with the leadership of a company to solve a problem.
We added a new thing this year called Growth Week, which is where all of our students are put on teams and every team works on the same problem.
In Impact, there's many companies, many teams For Growth Week, everybody's working on the same question. And it's right as the core course is wrapped up, so you're able to use all the different things you've been learning in isolation all together.
Last year, the problem was from Coca Cola and we had the CEO of Coca Cola come and one of the Goizueta family members came to judge the presentations for Growth Week.
That's the kind of access I'm talking about, where our students are given a privilege of not just hearing from these leaders, but actually engaging with them in meaningful ways and seeing what they're thinking about, understanding what problems the CEO of Coca Cola is thinking about right now.
That's what Atlanta gives us. The other thing that I think people underestimate is how beautiful the city is.
There are more trees in Atlanta than any other city I've ever been in. You feel like you're sort of in this urban forest.
We're maybe an hour away from mountains, we're a couple hours away from coasts.
And the Atlanta airport can get you anywhere in the world almost non stop. So when it comes to access to the whole world, I don't think we can be beat.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: Yeah, now you're reminding me. So, you know, you know, I was on campus in May Clear Admit, did our MBA fair in Atlanta and you know, as we were doing that event, you know, prospective candidates were coming to meet with, you know, Emory and other, other business schools. And it was just interesting to see, you know, people from, you know, Home Depot and, and Delta and there are all these companies. You know, I was just constantly being reminded of like, wow, you know, obviously you already mentioned Coca Cola. I mean the list is long and yes, you know, I mean, obviously amazing access. I do also want to, I have to. You mentioned earlier the kind of healthcare stuff and I, I don't know if you're okay with me sharing this, but basically we were on campus with some of our colleagues and you. We wanted to do a tour and there wasn't like an official tour guide round, so you kind of stepped up to the plate and took us on a tour of campus. And I. The thing that really struck me was the proximity that Emory and Guizueta has to like the cdc, which is literally. You kind of pointed, you're like, oh, it's right there. So, yeah, just that kind of tie in to healthcare. It just seems really impressive too. And then the last thing that struck me, and this is probably of no interest to anybody except for a geek like me, but when I was roaming around the business School building, which, forgive me, I forget the name of your main building.
At one point I went off to the bathroom and I was just struck by. I'm looking at the art on the walls. As I was going to the bathroom, I was like, wait, these are real pieces of art from really incredible painters. I was like, this is. And then sure enough, you like, popped up later and you're like, well, here's the book that has a picture of all the works that we have on display in this building because it is somebody's collection. So, yeah, I was just really blown away. And those are just a few little things that I think probably impact everyone that are in their daily life on campus.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: Yeah, the healthcare connection is something that we should talk about more. The CDC is literally right next to Emory's campus. Emory University gifted the land to the government to build the CDC there. Emory is well known for its work in Ebola vaccinations and AIDS research. And the reach that Emory has been able to have and the positive impact it's had around the world is really second to none. We're also really fortunate to have a partnership with the Carter center that does a lot of amazing work around the world as well.
Yeah.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: So no shortage of interesting kind of elements with regards to the immediate surroundings of the campus and beyond with Atlanta and the broader region. So if you'll stick around, we have some fun questions. Those are all the serious questions that I had. But we have these lightning round questions because I want our listeners to get to know you.
You've been in this industry a long time, and I just feel like you're one of the easiest people to talk to. So hopefully they'll listen this and be like, oh, okay, I can talk to Melissa. She's not some gatekeeper looking for flaws. She's actually, you know, a great person. So here we go. Coffee or tea?
[00:29:08] Speaker B: Coffee in the morning?
Tea before bed.
[00:29:13] Speaker A: Okay, sounds good. Beach or mountains?
[00:29:16] Speaker B: You ask me this every year and it's a struggle for me every year because the mountains are so, so beautiful. And it's been like 98 degrees here. So the idea of that crisp mountain air right now is really appealing. So this year I'm going to say mountains.
[00:29:33] Speaker A: Okay, perfect. Are you a morning person or a night owl?
[00:29:37] Speaker B: 100% a morning person.
[00:29:39] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:29:39] Speaker B: I don't like to be up past like 10pm I like to get up at like 5 morning.
[00:29:45] Speaker A: How about a pet peeve?
[00:29:47] Speaker B: People who are not well prepared to go through the security line and airport.
[00:29:53] Speaker A: Oh, gosh, I'm so There with you. Yes, I agree. They should almost have, like. I know they have these fancy lines for people who have status, but they almost just should have, like, a beginner's line and an expert line, like, based on, like, how much you've traveled in your life.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:30:05] Speaker A: Yeah. How about a comfort food? I feel like there's no shortage of amazing comfort foods in Atlanta and the southeast south in general, but for sure.
[00:30:14] Speaker B: But as I mentioned, I'm from Chicago, so I think my comfort food is going to be pizza.
[00:30:18] Speaker A: Ah, okay. Yeah. Deep dish. Right.
[00:30:20] Speaker B: Tried and true is kind of famous for that. Yep. Yeah.
[00:30:22] Speaker A: All right.
Excellent. What about a guilty pleasure?
[00:30:26] Speaker B: Right now, I'm deep in fantasy football. I don't know if I really feel guilty about it, but I do really enjoy sports and. And spending more time, like, time I should be cleaning my house or working in my yard, just sitting, watching football.
[00:30:42] Speaker A: There are worse things to do.
I also feel like sports, such a great. It's a. It's a great, you know, kind of distraction, fun thing to do. Yeah. What about the best advice you've ever received?
[00:30:52] Speaker B: The best advice I've ever received.
It's pretty simple. And it's something my dad has. Is sort of famous for saying to all of us kids and now grandkids.
And it's. It's not one thing, but it's that there's always another.
So there's always another car. There's always another house.
Back in the day, there was always another boyfriend.
And it was just sort of this. This attitude of if something doesn't work out, something else is going to come along. There's always another job. If you don't like this one, you'll find another one. And it was sort of this very positive point of view that has really served me well throughout my life.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: That's great advice. Yeah. I've loved doing these. You know, I've been. As I said to you before we came on air, I've been talking to a lot of your peers, and it's just been so much fun to get. Especially this. This question seems to just elicit some really interesting answers. What is one thing that applicants should stop doing immediately?
[00:31:53] Speaker B: Trying to sound like what they think an admission committee wants to hear.
[00:32:00] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, that's great advice. And then last but not least, and you can't use football here. What's the best thing that you've read, watched, or listened to recently?
[00:32:10] Speaker B: Okay, so this might actually. I maybe should have swapped my guilty pleasure and this. But I am in sort of the end of listening to an audiobook series called Dungeon Crawler Carl.
[00:32:26] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:32:27] Speaker B: And it's sort of a sci fi video game esque audiobook. And for the audience, if you know, you know, Dungeon Crawler Carl, it's like a super nerdy thing to be into.
[00:32:40] Speaker A: Oh, that's funny. I have not heard of that, but it's so good.
[00:32:43] Speaker B: It's really funny. And the, the guy who does the audiobook is phenomenal.
[00:32:47] Speaker A: I'm going to plead living in France for the reason that I don't know about this.
[00:32:51] Speaker B: That's fair.
[00:32:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll look into it.
Melissa, thank you so much for joining us and, you know, taking the time. I know that you're probably either close to or you're right around the round one kind of admissions deadline, so appreciate you taking some time out to chat. It's always great to catch up with you.
[00:33:08] Speaker B: It's always a pleasure, Graham. And if there was one other thing I could tell applicants, it would be don't be afraid to talk to admission people.
[00:33:15] Speaker A: Yeah, great advice. That's going to do it for this episode of the show. Thanks for tuning in to the Clear Admit MBA admissions podcast. And please remember to subscribe, rate and review the show wherever you listen.
[00:33:40] Speaker B: Ra.
