Poets & Quants Spotlights Darden Class of 2019, Lauds Education Environment
By Dave Hendrick
The MBA-focused publication Poets & Quants recently took a deep dive into the University of Virginia Darden School of Business Class of 2019, spotlighting 10 highly accomplished students from a variety of backgrounds.
In addition to noting the varied paths the students took to Darden, the article cites the extremely high levels of satisfaction students find at the School, as evidenced by the recent ranking from The Economist rating the School’s education experience No. 1 in the world for the seventh year in a row.
You don’t head to Charlottesville, Virginia, to play it safe or blend in. Here, students are expected to speak up and engage, knowing their viewpoints will sometimes be exposed as incomplete or dated. That’s part of the learning process, where repetition enables students to quickly get better. This case-driven methodology demands a heavy reading load, but it also comes with a focus on teaching. At Darden, professors take pride in questioning over lecturing and guiding over researching. Not surprisingly, MBA candidates respond favorably to the approach. In the newly-released Economist student survey, Darden again ranked 1st in personal development educational experience, while finishing 2nd in the most recent Bloomberg Businessweek student satisfaction survey.
“While we don’t skimp on the elbow grease — with a dedicated party in October for the First Year students completing 100 cases — Darden creates an environment of creativity and rational trade-offs through time pressure,” shares Buzz Becker, a 2017 graduate and member of Poets & Quants’ Best & Brightest MBAs. “It is a phenomenal place to learn life balance in our future careers, no matter how demanding our schedules may be.”
Darden may carry the reputation for academic rigor, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a stereotypical student in the 2019 Class — or any Darden class for that matter.
Students profiled in the piece include:
The University of Virginia Darden School of Business prepares responsible global leaders through unparalleled transformational learning experiences. Darden’s graduate degree programs (MBA, MSBA and Ph.D.) and Executive Education & Lifelong Learning programs offered by the Darden School Foundation set the stage for a lifetime of career advancement and impact. Darden’s top-ranked faculty, renowned for teaching excellence, inspires and shapes modern business leadership worldwide through research, thought leadership and business publishing. Darden has Grounds in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the Washington, D.C., area and a global community that includes 18,000 alumni in 90 countries. Darden was established in 1955 at the University of Virginia, a top public university founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819 in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Press Contact
Molly Mitchell
Senior Associate Director, Editorial and Media Relations
Darden School of Business
University of Virginia
MitchellM@darden.virginia.edu