Part-Time MBA Recorded Admissions Events

Admissions Director: All right. So first I want to take a quick step back and talk about the four different paths to earn your MBA at Chicago Booth. So at Booth, there are four ways to earn your MBA. All four programs are created equal and yield the same MBA degree. Our world-class faculty teach across all four programs. So each of the variations of the MBAs that you see here has the same core academic experience. So every student earns the exact same Chicago Booth MBA and becomes a part of the same Booth alumni network. There's no distinction there between the programs.

Admissions Director: So with that said, as you can see here in the description, there are nuances to each of the programs. There's a reason why we have each of these options available, so we can just kind of give a quick breakdown of each before we dive a little bit more deeply into the evening weekend programs. So I mean, first of all, we have our Full-Time MBA program. This is the, I'd say traditional path that probably a lot of you are familiar with to earn your MBA degree. Through this format, students quit their jobs and pursue their MBA in a full-time capacity in a little under two years. For us at Booth, this program is based down at the main University of Chicago campus in Hyde Park at our Harper Center.

Admissions Director: Now, the other three options that you see here for earning your MBA at Booth are done part-time, all designed for full-time working professionals who are looking to continue in their career while concurrently pursuing an MBA. So first, I want to highlight the Executive MBA program on the right since we won't be focusing on that one as much today. The Executive MBA I'd say is probably our most unique MBA option in terms of structure and design. Executive MBA students are typically a little bit more seasoned in their career, usually coming in with around 14 years or so of full-time work experience on average. This program is a cohort lockstep approach, meaning that students will go through a predetermined set of courses with the same group of people. And this program is based not only at our downtown Chicago campus, but at the Gleacher Center, but also at our international campuses in London and Hong Kong. So it has a built-in sort of international cohort rotation that you'll do as a part of the experience.

Admissions Director: And so with that, we'll focus on the middle for this session. We're going to be looking at our Evening and Weekend Programs, of course. These two programs are very similar in terms of structure and design. The biggest difference in these two is being where you'll primarily be taking classes in. And then all in-person classes for the Evening and Weekend programs are taught at the Gleacher Center in downtown Chicago as well. So we'll of course be taking a deeper dive into the Evening and Weekend programs today, but it's completely fine if you're also thinking about our Full-time or Executive MBA programs. Our teams work together and you're welcome to attend events and conversations across these programs as you determine the best fit for you. So really it's essential for you to do that research and pick the format here that best fits what you're looking for as well as your goals. Okay. And with that, probably the most important hallmark of the Booth MBA is that we share this foundational culture that you can basically see summarized in these three words, give or take. Our unique set of core values is what differentiates Booth from our peer institutions. And these values that you see here permeate the Booth experience and really embody what makes Booth the place it is. So as you continue to learn more about Booth, whether you visit a class, attend other events like this, I hope you see these qualities really come to life at Booth.

Admissions Director: So the first one that you see here is flexibility because we believe that you create the greatest impact in your development when given maximum flexibility and choice. So in terms of course selection, you will not find a more flexible MBA curriculum among our peer schools. And we care about this because we have a deep appreciation for individuality and believe that our students thrive in a choice rich environment. And the second core value is community. The Booth community embodies a very strong pay-it-forward mentality. I'm sure our students and alumni will attest to this. It helps our students get outside of their comfort zone, take risks, and most importantly, be themselves. And then within this community of diverse backgrounds, your individual strengths and unique perspectives will be amplified by the people around you. And then finally, we believe that you create the greatest impact in business when your decisions are evidence-based. So at Booth, you're being taught how to think, not what to think. This experience will help you get better at learning how to ask the right questions, take into account various perspectives, and ground decisions in evidence to reach solutions. And we take this approach because it's applicable to any and every career field - because it draws upon the fundamental business disciplines of behavioral science, economics, statistics, and accounting. So Booth really does an incredible job equipping its students with an analytical toolkit to approach various challenges and solve problems.

Admissions Director: And so how does this all happen? It's our world-class faculty that are the ones that bring this to life in the classroom. So at Booth, we are so proud to have faculty from all different backgrounds who are practitioners, researchers, and experts in their fields. And we just had a few individual's examples that we wanted to share on this slide here. So in the middle, we have Professor Douglas Diamond, who is our most recent of 10 Booth faculty members who have received the Nobel Memorial Prize in economic sciences. And this is for his research on banks and financial crises. Really, it can't be understated what these kinds of accolades can do for an MBA program. So of course, the opportunity to take coursework taught by a Nobel laureate is a once in a lifetime opportunity. But additionally, these types of recognitions can lift up an entire school. It allows Booth to attract more talented faculty, research professionals, all of which students benefit from as well. To the left is Professor Ayelet Fishbach, who is an excellent example of how social psychology and behavioral science are woven into Booth's curriculum. She's one of the top minds in the fields of motivation and decision making. And Booth students can take courses such as managerial decision making, negotiations, and even a course titled Designing a Good Life, which gives students the tools to adopt their own psychological approach to understanding ethical behavior in the workplace and in life in general. And then finally, you can see Professor Raghuram Rajan, who from 2013 to 2016 served as the governor of the Reserve Bank of India. So we continue to be happy to have him back as a member of the faculty here to bring that real world experience to the classroom. And he's one of our faculty that loves teaching our Evening and Weekend students. And this is just like a sampling, like I said, of the incredible resumes that our faculty have. They enjoy teaching Evening and Weekend students because you all have a real-time pulse of your industries and that just adds an extra layer of value to the classroom conversation.

Admissions Director: And so what happens beyond the classroom? Our alumni serve as really living proof that the Booth degree is effective and impactful. So Booth alumni consists of all MBA programs and bring together a community of thought leaders across the world. Our alumni receive an incredible level of support from Booth. When you become a Booth student, you receive career services support for life. Alumni can also come back and take up to three MBA courses for free at any time after graduation. You can think of Booth as a program that not only supports your next career move after you graduate, but also for the decades of work that come after that, right? So our alumni are really the true source of that pay-it-forward culture like I was talking about earlier when it comes to supporting our students. So many of our students, whether they're looking to make a career pivot or are simply looking to expand their network, really find so much success in meeting and speaking with alumni. Booth as a school will set up many enterprise-wide events that bring alumni together with students, such as our annual Booth 2020 Conference. This conference brings together alumni from various industries to meet with students and just share their stories and advice as they look back on their own Booth experience and what their journey has looked like since graduation. And then from an anecdotal standpoint, students can reach out to alumni directly. Booth has a alumni directory that you can just use your Booth affiliation and it's met with a very high response rate.

Admissions Director: But really before you become an alum, of course, you have to experience Chicago Booth as a student. So for the specific context of the Evening and Weekend Programs, here is a snapshot of our population- So essentially for students that started the program in the 2025 calendar year. As you can see, there's a lot of different factors that define our community on this slide, outside of this slide, but I always like to emphasize that there is no typical Booth student. And when we select our class overall, we're seeking out diversity in every sense of the word. So I mean, as you can see, there's incredibly wide industry representation from consulting to nonprofit, with every function in between. With our Weekend MBA program, you'll join a community of students based across the country. So for example, you come in for a Saturday class, you may see someone from the energy sector down in Texas, someone working at a tech startup on the West Coast, and then maybe someone working in government in DC altogether on a Saturday. Just a very unique in-person, high quality MBA experience just from a community perspective. And then with our Evening MBA program, you'll see just as much diversity in terms of industry and function, but these are typically Chicago-based professionals that take their classes primarily in the evenings after work. So whichever program you select, both programs allow you to build a robust network on your own. And in this environment, you'll be able to learn from your peers who have a real-time pulse on their industries and then unique perspectives and overall just take part in a great exchange of ideas in the classroom.

Admissions Director: I also think it's important to call out the work experience of our students. So as you can see here in the Evening and Weekend programs, this can be ideal at various stages in your career. Keep in mind that six to seven years is the average amount of work experience for our students. And we don't have a cutoff as far as experience goes, but we do like to highlight, we do have a early career candidate program called Chicago Business Fellows. It's designed for Evening and Weekend students with three years or less of full-time work experience at the time they start the program. It just serves as an excellent platform as someone who's early on in your career, you'll be able to easily identify with individuals that are in a similar part of their career journey and just beyond your incoming classes, have a great support network just informally in the community. So if anyone has any questions about that, please feel free to mention that in the Q&A.

Admissions Director: So as I mentioned, when building a class, we seek out diversity for a rich classroom experience, for learning opportunities, and really because if everyone in the class was the same, it would lead to a pretty boring experience. So with that, we can kind of turn things a little bit closer to the specifics of the Evening and Weekend Programs, how do they work, and from there we'll transition to the panel. Okay. So really one of the biggest factors, and we touched on it a little bit so far in the presentation, one of the biggest factors that differentiates Booth from our peer institutions is flexibility. And for the Evening and Weekend Program specifically, you can see this through the classes that you select as well as the pace in which you complete the program. So as we talked about, no matter what program you're in, there's uniformity across our MBA program. So between the Evening, Weekend and Full-time programs, you can mix and match what classes you're taking in each of those programs. So for example, let's just say you're local to Chicago and in the Evening Program, you're usually taking classes in the evenings after work, but let's just say in an upcoming quarter, you're going to be traveling for work quite a bit. You can elect to take a Saturday course in the Weekend Program instead. You won't get the priority access for Saturday courses, but once it becomes open enrollment across the programs that you'll get access and there's usually open seats. So another example would be, let's just say you're able to set your own hours for work and you can enroll in the Full-Time course during the daytime at the Hyde Park campus. That's perfectly fine to do as well. So ultimately, you have the flexibility to select classes in a quarter that will fit your schedule best between the Weekend, Evening and Full-time program.

Admissions Director: And just as you have flexibility on when you take your classes, you can just as easily manage the number of classes you take each quarter. Evening classes take place Monday through Friday evenings from 6:00 to 9:00 PM, and then weekend classes take place on Saturdays from 9:00 AM to noon, and then 1:30 to 4:30. And this is over a 10-week quarter, so you meet once a week at that same time for the 10 weeks to complete the quarter. So Evening and Weekend students on average will take two classes a quarter. So at this rate, considering it is 20 courses to complete the MBA, most students complete the program in about two and a half to three years. But you do have technically up to eight years, as crazy as that sounds, to complete those 20 courses. So really all that to say is you're in the driver's seat in terms of how quickly or slowly you go through quarter to quarter. And then after you figured out the right timing for your classes and how many classes you take in a quarter, we offer just as much flexibility for you to decide what those courses will be. And we have over 130 courses for you to choose from during your journey here at Booth. This choose your own adventure journey includes classes in the three foundational areas of statistics, microeconomics, and accounting. We feel these are fundamental to the Booth MBA experience. However, if you have strong knowledge or in any of these areas from previous academic or work experience, you can waive the basic level course and take a higher level course in that area to satisfy that foundational area. Students also complete a coursework in the functional areas of business. So these classes provide students with a breadth of knowledge and create a strong general management foundation. This includes finance, marketing, operations, and strategy to name a few of these. There's many course options within each of these areas and they don't need to be completed in a certain order. So you can take the classes that matter most to you, combine them in ways that make sense for you when you're in your journey.

Admissions Director: And then finally, there's electives. Those are the other 10 courses that will make up your 20. Electives gives you the chance to delve into further into specific areas of interest. You can use electives to focus on disciplines and work towards what we call concentrations. We have 16 concentrations for you to choose from. This includes applied AI, finance, general management, economics to name a few. Unlike a major, you aren't asked to declare a concentration upfront. You'll know what courses satisfy each of the concentrations. So it can just be simply another factor to consider when progressing through the program and deciding what courses to take. I always like to say concentrations are a great way to put on your resume to just showcase to an employer in this flexible curriculum. This is an area that I had emphasis on during my time at Booth. So these concentrations, they happen organically and you can finish to upwards of like three to four concentrations at the end of the day.

Admissions Director: Alternatively, you can leverage your electives more broadly across the Booth curriculum and even within the greater University of Chicago, and you can use up to six of those 10 electives outside of Booth at say our law school, our public policy school, and so on. You can also use your electives to access international study abroad opportunities. We offer an optional two-week study abroad program that allows students to study in one of seven different locations across the world while receiving one course completed towards your 20 in the process. So again, at Booth, you have the freedom to tailor your courses to fit your interests, experience, and career goals.

Admissions Director: And so let's shift away from the academic piece for a little bit and focus on a couple other aspects of the Booth experience, which I want to start with developing leadership skills. So leadership development is a significant part of the Booth experience. Our mission is to train future leaders, which means helping you think beyond numbers and balance sheets. And then LEAD, which you see here, it stands for Leadership Exploration and Development, is the one required course that all Booth students must complete. LEAD takes place during a student's first quarter in the program, and essentially it's a two full day experience comprising of six different learning modules designed to build a foundation for leadership development, self-awareness, and community interaction throughout the duration of your Booth MBA program. So our approach to leadership development empowers students to become their own best type of leader rather than fit into a leadership style dictated to them. S

Admissions Director: So beyond LEAD, there are many different ways to develop your leadership skills firsthand during your time as a student. We have a dedicated leadership center that offers innovative courses that are woven into our curriculum that helps support your development of your leadership identities and skills. So another common way that we see our students building on their leadership skills and as co-chairs or leaders of our 45 plus student organizations that go on to shape the culture of Booth and help students build relationships with alumni and industry executives. So like I said, we have about 45 student organizations within the Evening and Weekend programs, essentially to allow the opportunities for networking, community building, as well as industry exposure. And to that latter point, about half of these student-led clubs are industry specific, such as our product management club, our finance club, our Built at Booth Entrepreneurship Club, essentially any major industry you think of in the kind of business space, usually there's representation there. So it's a great way to put your foot in the door, whether you're already in that industry, or just maybe considering that industry as a potential path moving forward. Another half of our student clubs consist of social and affinity groups. We have some really awesome active groups such as our outdoors club, wine club, and our wellness club. They do some really great things, even just getting outside of Chicago, doing some really fun trips. I was actually just talking with one of our current students in our food club that during the fall break that's coming up here, they're going down to Mexico City as a small group and enjoying a couple days of the cuisine down there. So you'll see some really cool things come from that in the Evening and Weekend programs. So we also have a student advisory council who acts as the voice of students to help and run many major events throughout the year. And a favorite of many Boothies is our winter formal that we have every year. It's a great opportunity. You can bring your partner, great way to let loose and step outside the classroom and just enjoy a nice evening with your peers and classmates.

Admissions Director: And so with that, transitioning to the career side of things, pretty much everything we've talked about so far have a direct impact on your career journey here, of course. So to talk about the specific resources that go into supporting this aspect of the journey, we have our own career services center based at the Gleacher Center. They are a part of the same team that supports our Full-Time MBA students. So you have in-person or virtual support throughout your journey at Booth to meet with a career coach, regardless of what you're looking to get out of the conversation. You might be a career advancer, a career changer. They're essentially a great resource for you to understand all the resources that are available at Booth to help you get to that goal. Like I mentioned, we give you access to career services for life once you become a current student. So we want to help you when you face those big pivots and choices that happen well after graduation. So we always like to emphasize that.

Admissions Director: Okay, so finally with that, let's shift gears and talk about the Booth application as well as financial aid opportunities. Okay. So first let's talk about funding. There are many different ways to approach this. So when it comes to funding your MBA, my best recommendation is to do a breakdown of your own finances, speak with our own financial aid office to help determine the feasibility of the program, all while keeping in mind your own personal ROI of Booth. Most Booth students will use a combination of personal savings, loans, and maybe potential company reimbursement to cover the cost. So on that point, I recommend speaking to your company to understand any policies in place for reimbursement. And like I mentioned, we have a great financial aid team that's happy to help you understand any aspects of the loan experience that they're much more well-versed than our direct admissions team is. As you can see, we offer merit-based scholarships to admitted students who illustrate significant success both academically and professionally. These scholarships can be competitive and range from 10,000 to $30,000. And to be considered for these scholarships, there's nothing else that you need to do outside of applying to the Evening or Weekend programs, and you'll be notified of your scholarship decision when you're admitted to the program. And then finally, a few more specialized scholarship opportunities to mention is that Booth opts into the Yellow Ribbon program for military applicants, and we also offer a scholarship opportunity for those that work in the government or nonprofit sector and are looking to pursue or continue that career in social impact, called the Edwardson Civic Scholarship. That opportunity is available in the fall application every year. So if you have any interest in that program, and would like to learn more, please feel free to reach out to us and we'll be happy to help.

Admissions Director: Okay. And then yeah, just as we wrap things up here before we get to the panel, thank you all for your patience. You might be wondering what happens when our team looks at your application. First and foremost, we take a holistic approach to reviewing applications. And from this slide, you can see the components we require as you complete the application, but no piece is more important than another. Each plays a role in helping us understand you and the academic career and community impact that you could have at Booth. Many of you, you may have seen an email from us this week announcing a few updates to the application process- effective immediately. In the Evening and Weekend Programs, one of the biggest changes is that some applicants may now be eligible to waive the entrance exam requirement. So applicants who meet certain academic or professional criteria can automatically qualify for the waiver. So I encourage you to not only review the full eligibility criteria for our application, this can be on our application process page, but I also encourage you, if you're looking to apply for one of the timelines that you see here, feel free to start an application. You can come and go as you please, and you can see how this waiver process works in case you're wondering about that piece more. So if you do submit an exam, ultimately, we continue to accept the Executive Assessment, the GMAT, and the GRE. We don't have a preference among these three exams, and we encourage you to choose the exam that makes the most sense for you if you choose to do so. So we've also streamlined another part of the application. We now require one letter of recommendation rather than two, preferably coming from your current supervisor. Whether or not you submit a test score, remember that each piece of the application helps us understand a different part of your story, your academic record, including your transcripts, and when applicable, your test score helps us assess your academic preparation and potential for success in the classroom.

Admissions Director: Now looking at your essays, your resume, recommendation and interview, that's going to help us understand better your career trajectory, interpersonal collaboration skills, motivations, and what you could contribute to the Booth community. So hopefully that all makes sense. Ultimately, we want to understand you and your story. So we're looking for people who will be successful in the classroom, but will also be collaborative, engage members of the community, and pay it forward to their peers. So you'll see our upcoming application deadlines on this slide. All these applications are published and available for you to start. So as you look at this, consider a quarter that you feel confident in desiring to start the program, you can go ahead and do so. As an applicant, once you submit everything, you can expect a final decision within four to six weeks of submitting it, so a relatively quick turnaround. Again, we've shared more detailed information about these changes on our application process page, so definitely encourage you all to take a look at that in case you're curious about those new updates that we made.