Patricia Tang WG26’s admission to Wharton’s Moelis Advance Access Program changed her career trajectory. Tang, who began her MBA this fall, had planned to follow a traditional path to business school after graduating from Northwestern University: She would spend a few years as a consultant before pursuing her graduate education. But the program, which enables students to defer admission to Wharton’s full-time MBA program while they work for two to four years after college, “motivated me to think about different paths and what I truly wanted to do,” she says.
The Moelis program, which selected its first class in 2018, was established with philanthropic support from Ken Moelis W80 WG81 and Julie Taffet Moelis W81 to offer students a sense of professional license early in their careers. “It gives someone who thought they had to check a box for their business-school application a different opportunity,” Ken Moelis explains. In a sign of quick growth for the program, Tang and other Moelis Fellows — as students in the program are known — make up about one-tenth of the School’s newest full-time MBA class. “Part of the appeal is the assurance that you can do the things you care about. For some, it’s an opportunity to gamble, because they know they have their Wharton acceptance,” says program director Jake Kohler.
Tang’s self-reflection following her admission to the program ultimately led her to transition from a role in consulting to a post at online clothing reseller ThredUp, whose social mission fit with her own ambitions. “I was starting to think about how I could pursue a more impact-focused career in parallel with the fact that I had the MBA in my back pocket,” Tang explains. “The MBA was the push I needed to pursue my passion for sustainability.” Her product-management job at ThredUp also provided foundational on-the-ground experience at an up-and-coming organization, which affirmed for her that she wanted to fund rising businesses herself someday. Now while at Wharton, Tang is also an investor at Virta Ventures, a venture capital firm founded by Russell Sprole WG11 that backs companies working on climate-technology solutions.
In addition to enriching their professional experiences, students in the program enrich the broader Wharton MBA community. “We know how vital the first years of work are for anyone, especially for forming habits,” says Maryellen Reilly, vice dean of graduate student affairs. “Because these admits were granted a little more professional liberty by virtue of already being admitted to Wharton, they have a habit of taking calculated risks and are less afraid of failing. When they show up on campus, they are able to take some of that calculation to try new things in the curriculum and the community.”
For Shreya Jaggi C18 W18 WG22, part of the allure of returning to Wharton was the opportunity to round out her analytical acumen. “I knew that when I left Penn, there was still more I wanted to learn,” she says. “I wanted to go back for an MBA to grow as a leader and better equip myself for a managerial position. I also took several analytics classes that helped fill in gaps on the technical side.”
A member of the first class of Moelis Fellows to matriculate into Wharton, Jaggi spent her years after college in McKinsey & Company’s marketing and sales practice. Her acceptance to the Moelis program, she says, allowed her to think deeply about her career track. “Moelis deferred enrollment gave me the reassurance that I could return to Wharton to grow and develop skills to advance or pivot my career in the future,” she says. After graduating with her MBA, Jaggi returned to the same McKinsey practice as a senior associate.
Another returning Wharton alumnus, Billy Kacyem C18 W18 G25 WG25, got a taste for the graduate experience from relationships forged with MBAs during his undergraduate involvement with the annual Wharton Africa Business Forum. “I saw the strength of the MBA community,” he says, adding that his time in the undergraduate Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business also influenced his decision to join the Lauder Institute of Management and International Studies as an MBA student.
Leveraging the Moelis program’s flexibility to work for up to four years also enabled Kacyem to reflect on early career progress. After two years as an analyst at J.P Morgan, he weighed matriculating into the MBA program versus staying at the firm longer. “I assessed and decided I wanted to bring more work experience to Wharton. I also wanted at least one promotion before I was ready to go back,” says Kacyem, who was elevated to associate at the firm in 2021.
While it exclusively accepted Penn undergraduates in its first two years, the Moelis program opened to external applicants in 2020. A part of that inaugural global cohort, James Dohm GFA24 WG24 had studied chemical engineering at Vanderbilt University and began thinking about an MBA during his senior year. Ahead of his graduation, he secured an engineering position at ExxonMobil. “I had interned at a consulting firm and was headed into project management at Exxon,” he says. “I certainly had technical experience, but I was accepting roles that had important business components as well.”
At Wharton, Dohm explored his interests at the intersection of finance, energy, and climate change through an internship at Morgan Stanley, part-time consulting with energy technology company Modern Hydrogen, and world-class coursework. As for highlights of the deferred program, he points to relationships he formed with other accepted students during his working years. “The Moelis Advance Access Program is a fantastic way to build community and learn about different people prior to coming to the MBA,” he says. “People were incredibly receptive to meeting in person. It also helped me gain perspective on different career paths even before I started at Wharton.”
Forming new relationships with Moelis Fellows around the world was a highlight for Tang, too, during her working years. “I started hanging out with people in my cohort who I’ve genuinely gotten to know over the past four years,” she says. “We’ve become sounding boards for each other. The value is having people at the same stage in their lives and careers and seeing them grow exponentially.” As for her time at Wharton now, she says, “Going to school with some of my best friends was completely unintentional, but it’s awesome.”
Published as “Write Your Own Story” in the Fall/Winter 2024 issue of Wharton Magazine.
