I noted an interesting section of a CNN article on Stanford’s MBA program. The article is about MBA applications declining at the school but it paints an odd picture of how the program is managed.
[Director of Admissions] Bolton could just as easily come off as a CIA officer in Islamabad. He weaves and bobs his way around questions, often reluctant to surrender what you might consider harmless details, including his age.
Unlike many administrators at the school, Bolton has no résumé or biography on Stanford’s website. Why? “It’s not about me,” he says plainly. “The more people try to get into my head, the more of a disservice they do to themselves.”
When you ask Bolton how often he reverses a decision by his admissions team, he says: “It would be a number.” And when you ask how many of the 389 students in the class of 2012 have GMAT scores below 700, he says, “We report the things that we report.”
Pressed, he still declines an answer.
“One question,” he explains, “just leads to another question which leads to another question. There is no end to this. We’ll be asked, ‘How many marketers who are Portuguese who studied architecture in undergrad and live in Minneapolis are there in the class?’ There is a lot of information that applicants want that has no value to them in the process.”
You could say the same about any set of questions, yet questions still get answered.
Why not answer questions and only stop when a question is unreasonable, instead of stopping every question and refusing to answer? Define a level of unreasonableness and let people know what is acceptable.
“It would be a number” sounds intentionally evasive and opaque, instead of saying I am afraid I can not answer that because of x. It is like he is in battle, trying to deflect rather than absorb or block the pointy tips fired at him. At least he does not taunt those who seek information — “You want answers? Ha ha! Try and get them.”
The article puts Bolton in an unfavorable light. He seems to say that no question can be reasonable — data shared can not be questioned. That should raise eyebrows and put the admissions process and perhaps the whole program under more scrutiny for better transparency. The demand for more transparency in business, after recent market failures and fraud cases, perhaps makes more scrutiny of the management ethics and transparency of MBA programs timely as well as appropriate.