Laurel Grodman
Managing Director of Admissions
Hi, my name is Laurel Grodman and I’m managing director of admissions at the Yale School of Management. I'm also a member of the Yale SOM Class of 2006. Sit tight because there is going to be a lot of information in this section.
Your academic record, in combination with other elements of your application, helps us understand your preparation to engage in a rigorous MBA program. In this section, you’ll share information about your academic pursuits, which can include undergraduate, graduate, study abroad, transfer, and other university coursework you’ve taken for degree credit. It’s important to review the instructions in this section very carefully to make sure we’re getting the information we need from your entries and your transcripts. I’ll call out a few specific tips here:
When filling in your institution, please spend a few minutes to find your university in the dropdown list. While not required, finding your institution there will help us better organize your file.
Don’t calculate your own GPA. In the GPA field, report the GPA exactly as it appears on your transcript, maintaining the GPA scale used by your institution. If a GPA or class rank is NOT on your transcript, please leave those boxes blank in the form.
Speaking of transcripts, you should upload an unofficial transcript generated by your school, which can be a copy of a physical transcript released to you by the institution, or an electronic version available online. If you’re admitted and enroll at Yale SOM, we’ll give you instructions for sending official transcripts at that time.
Missing and incomplete transcripts are the number one reason for delays in an application review once we’ve begun reading your file. So, make sure we have all of your transcripts and that they include all of the necessary course and grade information before you hit submit. Some things to keep in mind: If your university transcript does not have both courses AND grades from transfer or study abroad work, we’ll need a separate transcript with this information. If your original transcript is in a language other than English, please upload a certified translation and a copy of the original. And please make sure to include your university’s grading key.
Any courses or personal and professional development certificates that were not taken for credit should NOT be listed in this section. These might be ungraded courses taken on online education platforms, CFA or CPA certification, or MBA prep programs. If you’d like to share those experiences with us, you can include them in your resume.
Lastly, we ask you to share some information about the quantitative coursework you’ve taken. All of the coursework should come from a higher education institution (so no MOOCS or MBA prep courses), and should be the most introductory level course you have taken in a given area. It’s important to note, Yale SOM does not require you to have previous quantitative coursework for admission. In fact, it’s not uncommon to admit students with little or no prior quantitative exposure. But this information gives us a good sense of your starting point, and helps us identify which incoming students are good candidates for Math Camp, a prep course offered to students who will benefit from additional exposure to quantitative concepts prior to starting the SOM core curriculum.