Education
Learn about The Consortium for Graduate Schools of Management, and how it can help YOU gain acceptance at a top business school. [Show summary] Danni Young, Director of Recruiting for the Consortium for Graduate Schools of Management, breaks down how the Consortium helps hundreds of students from target populations get accepted to top MBA programs each year. Are you planning to apply to top MBA programs? Listen in to discover if applying through The Consortium is right for you. [Show notes] Danni Young, Director of Recruiting for the Consortium for Graduate Schools of Management, earned her bachelor's degree from Lincoln University in Missouri and her MBA from Washington University in St. Louis. Let's hear from her how the Consortium can help you get your MBA. Let's start with the basics. What is the Consortium? [1:41] The Consortium is a nonprofit organization that's been around for over 50 years now. Our mission is to ultimately increase the representation of three target populations in our member schools, MBA programs, and in the ranks of management in corporate America. Our mission is focused on African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans. Our goal is to ultimately increase representation of those three target populations in our member schools. Over the last 54 years, we've offered $510,000,000 in fellowship support. What are the benefits of membership? [2:35] It starts with our common application process. If you're thinking about pursuing your MBA at one of our 20 member schools, we definitely encourage you to use our common application. With that common application, a prospective MBA has the ability to apply to up to six of our member schools with one common application. Obviously, the benefit of that is that you'll save time and money when you're applying to business schools, but you're also having an opportunity to apply for Consortium membership, which is very valuable in itself, and then also to be considered for the Consortium fellowship. The application process is very streamlined. You don't have to apply directly to our member schools. You can apply through us, and your common application will serve as your application to the business school. It will serve as your application for membership as well as your application for the fellowship consideration. It's a one-stop shop. Ultimately, the benefit of Consortium membership is that aside from the fellowship consideration, you'll have an opportunity to be a part of our exclusive network. Our network consists of our 20 member schools, roughly 1000 students across our 20 schools currently. We have 10,000 alumni in the US and abroad, and we also have roughly 90 corporate partners that are part of the Consortium as well. That's our network, and that's what membership entails: being a part of that network. Membership also means that you have access to our online career center. It's called CGSM Online, and it's a platform only for Consortium members. It's a great way to have connections with our corporate partners, upload your resume, look at a job, post job opportunities. That membership means that every new Consortium member has a chance to attend our annual orientation program and career forum. We call it OP. That's the highlight of the Consortium experience. It happens every year in early June. This past year, it was supposed to be in Seattle, Washington. With COVID, we had to transition the conference to virtual, but it worked out really well. But next year, our OP will be in New Orleans. Hopefully, we'll be able to be onsite for that. That's a four- to five-day conference in which new members have a chance to connect with other Consortium students across our schools. They have a chance to attend workshops and seminars on business-related topics. They get a chance to have direct access to our corporate partners and also attend our career forum. So even before they start their MBA program in the fall,