UVA Darden Launches Application for Deferred MBA Admissions Program

20 Future Year Scholars Are Now Earning an MBA at the Darden School

The University of Virginia Darden School of Business has launched its application for the Future Year Scholars Program, the School’s deferred MBA admissions program.

The program offers graduating undergraduate students who will graduate between 1 October 2021 and 30 September 2022 the opportunity to apply for admission to a future Darden Full-Time MBA class. Students who are in a full-time master’s degree program who have not held a post-bachelor’s degree full-time work position and will graduate during this timeframe are also eligible to apply.

If admitted, individuals complete two to five years of professional work experience before joining the Darden School.

First launched in 2016 as a way to encourage undergraduates to consider an MBA earlier in their career deliberation, the program has quickly become an important pipeline, connecting top students to the Darden MBA.

The Class of 2022 — the first class to include Future Year students — includes four students who applied through the Future Year Scholars program, and the Class of 2023 includes 16 Future Year students.

The 20 students admitted through the deferred access program come from a range of backgrounds and undergraduate institutions, and worked in varied fields before beginning their Darden careers.

“After I was accepted to Darden, I began my career feeling empowered, and I was able to focus on absorbing as much knowledge as I could,” said Amanda Hedgecock (Class of 2022), a Duke University undergraduate who worked at PayPal prior to Darden. “The Future Year Scholars Program let me explore my interests and be intentional about what I wanted to achieve in the early years of my career.”

Darden, which has been named the best education experience in the U.S. by The Economist for nine years in a row, recently welcomed a new Full-Time MBA class of record-breaking accomplishments. The most recently graduated Class, meanwhile, reported record salaries and signing bonuses.

There is no fee to apply to the Future Year Scholars Program, and Darden is accepting standardized test scores including the SAT, ACT, GMAT, GRE, EA, LSAT and MCAT as part of a holistic application process.

The application deadlines for the Future Year Scholars Program are 12 April and 2 August. Applicants are encouraged to choose the deadline they feel allows them to present their most competitive application.

Interested students should email futureyear@darden.virginia.edu with any questions regarding eligibility or application criteria.

Interested in learning more? Darden Admissions will host a 20 October event devoted to introducing the application, and a 27 October event will feature multiple Future Year students who are now earning their MBA at Darden. Read more profiles of Future Year Scholars on the Darden Admissions Blog.