by David Simpson, Admissions Director, MBA & MiF
Poets & Quants recently profiled a selection of our new class of MBA 2020 students. Helping put together the list of potential students for them to focus on was a particularly difficult activity.
From the class of 485 students we had to highlight just a dozen or so who represent us. There is so much diversity in each London Business School class that the task is almost impossible. We couldn’t include representation from every region or every employment sector, but what I hope shines through is the spirit of LBS. We have a community of incredibly interesting people who are passionate about interacting with peers from all around the world, across every possible sector.
You can download the Student Directory of the full 2020 class here.
This is our largest class ever, with our highest ever proportion of women, at 40%.
We’re very proud of that, but are determined to keep increasing it until we reach parity, which is incredibly challenging for a global school who recruits from countries where there aren’t perhaps as many women in the professional workforce. But it’s our job to change that, by sending talented men and women all over the world to make a difference in whatever they do.
The last admissions season was a lot of hard work for the Admissions Team and everyone else involved in helping applicants – including the Marketing, Global Recruitment & Outreach, Visa & Financial Aid teams, through to the Programme Management and Career Centre teams who help guide everyone through the next part of their journeys as students. As well as the student community, we have an incredibly diverse community of staff here at LBS. In the Recruitment & Admissions teams alone we have staff from Italy, Colombia, Spain, USA, Malaysia, Nigeria, Greece… and even a couple of us from the UK! We really enjoy working together and relish the challenge of meeting amazing people on our travels around the world. From August through to May, we never have a full office – there’s always someone on the road meeting candidates.
Right now we are working on recruitment for the Student Ambassador programmes. We’re selecting new students to work closely with us in helping the next intake. We had huge volumes of applications, which I think is a good indicator of the spirit and drive of our student body. I met the new Masters in Finance Ambassadors last night. They’re a lively and interesting group who share a passion for finance.
And those new intakes aren’t far away. We had a very healthy Round One on the MBA, with initial admissions results going out on 11 October. I am really enjoying reading the applications, hearing your stories and aspirations and imagining what the class of MBA 2021 will look like! And with that, it’s back to the application reading for me.