A Yale SOM Journey 25 Years in the Making

I only applied to Yale. For me, the decision was deeply personal and shaped by a connection that began a long time ago.

You see, I’m an immigrant. My family moved from Chile to Connecticut in 1997, when I was 9 years old. I learned English at a small Catholic school in New Haven, and in 1998, I was accepted into a summer school program run by Yale College students through the Ulysses S. Grant Foundation. I spent those formative summers before sixth, seventh, and eighth grades hanging out on Yale’s storied Old Campus, reading at Sterling Memorial Library, and learning how to swim in the Payne Whitney Exhibition Pool.

The time spent interacting with Yale students strengthened my grasp of a second language. More importantly, it helped a shy kid from Chile begin to form a sense of identity in a place where diverse backgrounds were not just accepted but appreciated for the perspectives they offered.

At an early age, I experienced firsthand just how welcoming the Yale community could be. So, when it came time to choose a school for my MBA, there was only one answer: Yale SOM. I wanted the full-circle story. I wanted the dream of becoming a Yale student that first hatched at age 11 to come true in my thirties.

What I didn’t anticipate was just how deep that sense of community would go.

Early in the SOM application process, Emily Whitehouse from the EMBA admissions team invited me to sit in on a lecture with Professor William Goetzmann, faculty director of the program’s asset management curriculum. When it came time to interview, Chad Berkowitz, a Yale College alum and my former summer school teacher, offered to help me prepare with a mock interview and later introduced me to other alumni to help me kick-start a Yale network.

I got into the EMBA program. I attended a rigorous, challenging, but incredibly fun two weeks of residency. I did well in Principles of Accounting and barely passed Probability.

A few months later, I was laid off from my full-time job. The company I worked for sold to a foreign entity and my team was eliminated. It was a gut punch, but it also became one of the defining tests of the SOM community. Since one of the requirements of the MBA for Executives program is to be employed full-time, this could have been a crisis point. Instead, it became a powerful moment of support and resilience. Not only did my learning team and cohort rally around me, but I also had access to incredible job search resources through the Career Development Office. Through SOM, I accessed resume reviews, company contacts, interview prep help, personal branding workshops, and more.

With some time on my hands, I decided to take on two additional electives during my first spring semester: Programmatic Acquisition Strategy and Value Creation in Private Equity.

Pro tip: read the syllabus before the first class. I had not realized the latter was taught by Adam Blumenthal ’89, managing partner of Blue Wolf Capital, a middle-market private equity firm based in New York, until I found myself sitting right in front of him.

Throughout the course, I engaged directly with Blue Wolf employees and other seasoned private equity professionals, gaining a front-row seat to real-world discussions about portfolio investments, operational challenges, and strategic decision-making. It quickly became clear that the team at Blue Wolf operated with values deeply aligned to Yale’s ethos: integrity, impact, and community.

Through the connections I made in that classroom, I got the opportunity to apply to, and ultimately landed, a hybrid operations role supporting two companies in the firm’s portfolio. My second year in the EMBA program included regular travel between my apartment in Jackson, Mississippi; a hotel in Chicago for work trips; and a shared duplex in New Haven for class weekends and pizza. Every trip felt like another exciting page in this chapter of my story.

It was a whirlwind, but an incredibly rewarding one. I had the rare chance to use what I was learning in real time at two very different companies and apply classroom insights to drive real value on the ground.

As you research MBA programs, you’ll often hear the word “transformative” thrown around. I once thought it was standard grad school lingo, but for me, the two years at SOM were nothing short of life changing. During Commencement, I walked through Phelps Gate into Old Campus, just as I had 25 years prior, with a heart full of gratitude. But this time as a newly minted Yale graduate.

I hope my story inspires others to follow their intellectual curiosity and transform their lives in search of purpose.

When you embed yourself in the Yale community, there is this “blue layer” that begins to follow you wherever you go, long before Commencement. It’s in the admissions process, in the interview prep with an old friend, in the hallway after a thought-provoking class, in a coffee chat with a student from another program, and even in a quick hello from an alum at LaGuardia Airport who spots your Yale sweatshirt.

So many people have formed my personal “blue layer” and helped shape this journey. Chad Berkowitz taught me the power of our imagination; AJ Wasserstein taught me to embrace being in the arena; Adam Blumenthal showed me what it means to add value; my cohort taught me to persevere and dance in the eye of the storm; and my friends and family supported me unconditionally.

To me, that blue layer also entails a responsibility to personify the values of the school and represent this institution as best I can.

After all, I only applied to Yale.