Guide to UVA Darden School of Business

The University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia, is where you can find the Darden School of Business. Among its other academic programs, Darden offers its students three ways to get an MBA: a full-time MBA and two executive MBA choices. The professors’ use of the case method in the classroom, an approach that encourages student debate on actual business issues, is a defining feature of the Darden MBA program. Over the course of the two-year MBA program, each student is expected to review more than 500 business cases, according to the school.

Round 1: October 5, 2022 | Round 2: January 5, 2023 | Round 3: April 5, 2023
Application Fee: US$250

Program length: 2 years
Acceptance rate (both programs): 39.5%
Average age of new entrants: 28
Required standardised test: GMAT/GRE
Average GMAT score (both programs): 729 | Average GRE Verbal/Quant score: 160 | Average GPA: 3.52
Require work experience: did not disclose | Average work experience: 5 years

• Season: 2022
• Number of Essays: 3 short essays (200-300 words)
  
• Submission Deadline: Same as application deadline

Essay Topics
Given that you will be forming lifelong connections with your classmates that extend beyond the classroom, what is important for your classmates to know about you that is not on your resumé? (200 words)
Please describe a tangible example that illuminates your experience promoting an inclusive environment and what you would bring to creating an inclusive global community at Darden. (300 words)
At this time how would you describe your short-term, post-MBA goal in terms of industry, function, geography, company size and/or mission and how does it align with the long-term vision you have for your career? (200 words)

• Season: 2022
• Number of Recommendations: 1
• Submission Deadline: Same as application deadline

Choosing Recommenders:

Choose someone who is familiar with you, has overseen you professionally, and has really seen you at work (typically within the last few years). Choose a person who can provide the university with concrete instances and stories that will allow them to understand more about your successes and leadership potential. Recommendations that are strictly intellectual are often less useful in our judgment.

Be careful to consider what they will be expected to perform when selecting your recommender (and when establishing expectations). Your recommenders will complete two pieces of information — a rating grid in which they will rate you across a set of skills and a series of short answer questions — as part of our entirely computerized recommendation process.

Additional Questions: Personal qualities and skills grid, plus two questions which are as follows,

1. Tell us what you would want your Learning Team to know about you that is not on your resume. (150 words)
2. Darden strives to identify and cultivate responsible leaders who follow their purpose. Please respond to one of the following prompts (200 words)