UCLA Anderson School of Management is a renowned business school in Los Angeles, California. It is recognized globally for its exceptional academic programs, distinguished faculty, and innovative research initiatives. The school offers a range of degree programs, including MBA, Master’s, and PhD programs, as well as executive education programs designed to meet the needs of professionals at every stage of their careers. With a commitment to excellence, collaboration, and ethical leadership, UCLA Anderson prepares its students to become influential and transformative leaders in business and beyond.
An Overview
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1. What do you need to know as an applicant to UCLA?
UCLA Anderson is a top-tier business school, aims for a close-knit atmosphere despite its large city setting. With a class size target of 360 students, it is one of the smaller leading business schools. Additionally, the low student-to-faculty ratio contributes to its intimate feel. While located in Los Angeles, one of the largest and most diverse cities in the U.S. UCLA offers an abundance of activities and opportunities for students to explore.
Anderson’s program has a strong career orientation, with a deep focus on preparing students for their desired professions. The first-year course load is arranged to be highly conducive to internship recruiting, and elective emphases are organized by career path.
You attend 10 weeks of classes over a quarter.
Additionally, all second-year students are required to complete a 20-week experiential project. These measures ensure that Anderson MBA graduates enter the workforce with a wealth of directly relevant experience.
UCLA also has a strong focus on entrepreneurship. They value the entrepreneurial mindset and look at this quality as a very important aspect to evaluate the fitment to the program. They have one of the largest entrepreneur clubs too.
Access to media and entertainment opportunities. The proximity to world’s largest entertainment hub – Hollywood, UCLA also is a great choice for people who would like to pursue a career in media or entertainment.
Crackverbal Alum Insights:
While this might be true, we spoke to one of the current students at UCLA. Especially for international students who do not have any network in media industry it might not be an easy option.
Class profile
Top backgrounds from different industries
Percentage of students with different experience levels
Top Hiring Firms
Crackverbal Alum Insights on Internship Opportunities:
We spoke to Chris who is a current student at UCLA. He spoke about two types of internships / job opportunities that come to UCLA.
UCLA works with a campus recruitment portal where companies get to post their requirements on roles that they are looking for. The MBA students have access to this portal and can apply for what they are looking for.
They have two types of recruitment opportunities coming from companies
- Centralized Job Opportunities: Companies like Amazon have a hiring process where they do not hire candidates for any specific position or role. Their hiring process is to assess the fitment based on Amazon’s leadership principles. Chris spoke about the advantage of having seniors on the campus too. The second year students who have got through opportunities in companies like Amazon take workshops for the first year students. All of these internships turn into job offers.
This process is typically in the first two semesters. - Decentralized Job Opportunities: Here companies come with very specific roles. They might very clearly advertise for Product Management roles or Finance positions. The entire process here is to assess the candidate for the specific role.
Interesting insight here: For students who are looking at completely changing industries, this might be tough as this process is too soon in the MBA journey for them to showcase their strength in something that they haven’t done.
However, we have an interesting insight from our student in NYU stern where she spoke about getting into Investment Banking with no prior background. Her background was in Tech, however she was keen in getting into Investment Banking roles. She said this was possible only because it was NYU stern!
2. Cost of doing an MBA from UCLA
The total cost for 2 years will be around 240K – This cost includes all Estimated Program Charges ( depending on the electives chosen) , Travel, Health insurance, school fees , Food/Housing, Books and Supplies, Personal and loan fees.
Crackverbal Alum Insights:
UCLA does have options to do internships and Teaching Assistantships. Lot of students do up to two internships during their 2 year MBA.
Teaching assistantships are dependent on the grants the professors get by the university. However, if you reach out to them earlier you can look at taking this as an opportunity to work closely with the professors to assist them in tests and in classes. You can earn upto 12000 dollars in internship in a quarter.
3. Student Organizations
UCLA has 40 graduate student clubs. Ranging from community outreach, diversity and affinity groups, career clubs, and social and athletic organizations, students are able to expand their network to other UCLA Anderson MBA graduate programs and corporate contacts. Club activities take place during the day, evenings and weekends, and can include networking opportunities, social events and company visits.
4. Curriculum
The first year at UCLA will focus more on your core courses and fewer electives. The second year is more experiential with the majority of your time going into capstone projects and focusing on your electives.
Interesting electives include:
- Digital Marketing Strategy” by Sanjay Sood (MBA from Kellogg and Phd from Stanford)
- “Evolution and Innovation in the Global Mobile Industry” by Terry Kramer (HBS)
- “Persuasion and Influence” by Noah Goldsteing – His primary line of research involves the study of the factors that lead people to change their behaviors in a variety of contexts, including management, marketing and health
- “Negotiations Behavior” by Miguel Unzueta – PhD in Organizational Behavior from the Stanford Graduate School of Business
- “Tools and Analysis for Business Strategy” by Lori Santikian – Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University
- “Technology Analytics” by Keith Chen – His research blurs traditional disciplinary boundaries, bringing big-data tools to bear on problems at the intersection of Economics, Psychology, and Biology.
Crackverbal Alum Insights:
Chris told us about the Global immersion program : These programs are typically led by professors based on research on specific business challenges in different industries.
For example one of the programs they had in Japan focusing on the spectacular economic growth they had in the early 50s to 80s and then the recession. This course seeks to familiarize students with Japan’s business environment and to help them identify business opportunities
5. Conferences and Summits
Students at UCLA get a lot of opportunities to network through conferences and summits.
Velocity: UCLA Anderson Women’s Leadership Summit
PULSE: 400 MBA students, alumni and leading industry executives to share insights and perspectives on what’s impacting the ever-changing entertainment and sports industries.
EVOLVE: industry leaders and renowned UCLA researchers who share knowledge and networking opportunities among students and professionals in the retail industry.
Impact Week: brings together the thought leaders and founders of mission-driven businesses for a week-long event focused on creating social, environmental and economic evolution.
Vitals: Great for students looking at healthcare. This conference provides professional connections and education to students interested in the business of healthcare, whether they’re interested in healthcare products and/or services
Crackverbal Alum Insights:
Chris told us about the Global immersion program : These programs are typically led by professors based on research on specific business challenges in different industries.
For example one of the programs they had in Japan focusing on the spectacular economic growth they had in the early 50s to 80s and then the recession. This course seeks to familiarize students with Japan’s business environment and to help them identify business opportunities
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Let us help you get into UCLA
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