, Dean, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth, which was ranked 15th by the latest Financial Times survey of business schools. Speaking to Rayana Pandey, Danos highlights how important it is to have a faculty that is into active research. Excerpts:
What brings you to India?
India is an important country for us because of the high quality of English speaking students it produces.
Most Indian students, say engineers or even others, understand the value proposition of the management programme very well. They are very successful.
At Tuck Business School, besides the required GMAT scores, undergraduate record and work experience, it is extremely important for the student to possess a clear cut rationale for pursuing an MBA.
What percentage of foreign students at Tuck are Indians?
Indians form the largest group among international students. Other than that, we have Chinese and Japanese as large groups. Till about five years back, we had only five Indian students. The numbers have risen phenomenally since then.
Presently, out of a total strength of 240, we have about 40 Indian students for our full time MBA programme. In spite of very high standards of selection and screening, we see Indian students competing very well.
How do you see Indian students placed internationally?
There used to be a difference in what the Americans and Indians made after their MBA say five years back. But, statistically, there is no difference between them today. The gap has gone away. There is so much more richness in the Indian students in terms of quality and calibre.
Last year at Tuck we saw the biggest jump ever in terms of salary. On average, an Indian student was placed with a pay package that was ten times higher than what he/she was getting before their MBA at Tuck.
How is the fund raising initiative at Tuck a model for Indian B-schools?
In the American model, business schools are funded by the tuition fee, profits from executive education and capital gifts. The biggest tranche of the money, almost 80 per cent, comes from our alumni as capital gifts.
This is a result of the culture that we develop at Tuck, where students feel like giving back as part of the tradition. It can only work for a not-for-profit organisation and that is where the Indian Institute of Management (IIMs) stand a good chance. But then, the regime should be such that the money goes into the institute's development and not the government.
How do you ensure quality and innovation at Tuck?
The heart of our strategy is to have a faculty that is actively doing research on the latest best practices in all fields. We expect our faculty to be updated and research oriented. This is a must for any top business school. It is dangerous to have a non- researching faculty.
By definition that's looking backwards. They are the ones who will innovate the process further and keep the curriculum fresh. Moreover, it is difficult for students to do well without an excellent mentoring, which only happens if the faculty is constantly researching.
Do management graduates at the Tuck business school see the slowdown in the US market impacting their prospects in the US?
We are so leveraged that this is not much of a concern. Moreover, the job market is huge. These are situations that people live through. The impact, more that anything, was of the fear factor post 9/11 but it never really changed the percentage of international students on campus.
Top B- school are very stable. There could be a dip of five per cent in application but that is not huge. We still have 20 applications per seat and our students get excellent jobs after they graduate.
