The structure of the first-year class tends to shape the MBA experience, affecting the friends students make, the teamwork skills they learn, and the peer support they receive. In past Trivia Tuesday columns we’ve considered the ways in which Harvard and Kellogg structure their first year classes; this week we turn our attention to the class structure at the Yale SOM.
Yale’s first-year class is divided into three cohorts, referred to as Blue, Silver and Green. Students report that the bond within these groups is usually strong, and since students take all of their core courses with their cohort, inside jokes and camaraderie tend to develop throughout the year. In addition to classroom and group work, cohorts band together for good-natured extracurricular competition. For instance, in the fall of 2006, first-year cohorts participated in a very successful fund-raising drive for SOM’s non-profit internship fund, and in a less constructive but equally competitive keg war.
Within Yale’s cohorts, students are assigned to seven-person learning teams. As is the case at most business schools that break their student bodies into smaller units, both these teams and the larger cohorts are constructed with an eye to capturing the diversity of the class and ensuring that students are introduced to others with varying backgrounds and areas of expertise.
Two points of divergence with the approach of other business schools are the relatively large size of Yale’s teams – most schools cap their Learning Teams at 5 or 6 students – and the minimal scope of their formal role. The only official role of Yale’s learning teams is in the first-semester course Interpersonal Dynamics, in which students work with their groups on role plays and class projects. This is something of a contrast to the role of Learning Teams at leading schools such as Tuck or Wharton, which require that students collaborate with their assigned teams in each core course. Instead, Yale students tend to work in smaller, self-selected study groups in most of the core courses. Though the cohorts spend significant time together in and outside of the classroom during the first year, students report that cohort culture does not continue into the second year. By this point, students’ coursework consists entirely of electives, and new social networks form around shared professional and academic interests.
For more information on Yale’s first-year experience or the class structure of other leading business schools, be sure to check out the schools’ websites or the Academics section of the Clear Admit School Guides!
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