This graduate program is a product of the $200 million donation from alumnus Robert Day ’65, who hoped to enhance the educational experience at CMC. The program replaced the former Robert Day 4+1 MBA Program at Claremont Graduate Institute with an on-campus option and was modeled on a number of similar graduate programs, most notably the Masters of Finance degree offered at Princeton University. Robert Day, the grandson of another important donor and Superior Oil Co. founder William M. Keck, hoped to do something slightly different with his donation. His efforts eventually led to the creation of the Robert Day Scholars program.

Robert Day '65 interacts with CMCers at a Networking Event.

The draws of the Masters program include its specialized instruction, a 97% job placement rate, scholarships of at least $24,000, and networking trips to Asia and New York for job placement purposes. The Robert Day Masters scholarships are just slightly more than the $21,000 scholarship given to undergraduate scholars for their participation in the program. The deadline for the undergraduate program was Friday, October 14.

The RDS “package” also includes networking connections with many of the most successful of CMC alums, many of whom serve on the Board of Trustees and the board of the Robert Day School, as well as a week-long session with Training the Street (TTS), a week-long finance preparation program which trains analysts at many top Wall Street investment banks.

For the future, Blomberg sees a graduate class of about 40 students including 7-10 undergraduate students taking part in the 4+0 program, in which CMC students are able to get both a BA and MA in 4 years. There are currently 5 students enrolled in this new program. As Professor Blomberg said in a New York Times article earlier this year, he hopes these students will be able to “show up at the door of [an] investment bank and you won’t even need to add batteries.”

Although the small program has no strict competitors, it does have similar admissions numbers to other top finance programs. The average GRE quantitative score for CMC Graduate students in the Class of 2011 was 770, while Princeton’s Masters in Finance class had a median GRE quant score of 790. The college has continued to market to students via a number of avenues, including presentations at various undergraduate institutions and running online and targeted ads on Facebook. Applications to the graduate program have increased in size in each of its first three years.

When compared to the undergraduate Robert Day Scholars, Blomberg noted that the understanding of the graduate program among CMC’s alumni network needs “to grow a little bit, as the masters program students have traditionally been different from our undergrads.”

Blomberg sees the RDS undergraduates as those seeking a liberal arts background and wanting specialized education in areas of finance, accounting and economics, while the graduate students have mostly come from national research universities, giving them a different undergraduate experience. The program will continue to recruit more students from small colleges. Blomberg and the Director of Admissions at the Robert Day School, Kevin Arnold, have continued to reach out to liberal arts schools across the United States to familiarize them with CMC’s new graduate program.

Undergraduate and graduate RDS scholars have found jobs in similar places, and Blomberg credited these similarities to the connections the school maintains with its alumni base, and the strong work of Director of External Relations, Michelle Chamberlain and her team. Placements for the graduate class of 2011 included positions at Ernst & Young, Goldman Sachs, Houlihan Lokey, and Morgan Stanley.

Following a recent networking trip, Blomberg said, “the anecdotal evidence suggests that the [job] market is tight, and the actual evidence continues to suggest that the market is tight.” At a recent job event for Barclays Capital at Harvey Mudd on October 12, a recruiter noted there are few opportunities in finance in the United States at this time. With the job environment for CMCers looking bleak, it presents a challenge for the current graduate students and for the program to maintain its 97% job placement record.

However, with more undergraduate students facing a life after college without a job, this may benefit the program with more highly qualified applicants turning to the masters program as an intermediary step to their job search.

Although the debate continues over CMC’s current academic focus, applications for the undergraduate and graduate RDS programs, as well as to the college, are on the rise. If the program can continue to place graduates in top spots, despite the dismal job outlook for ‘Generation Limbo’, the RDS Masters program will continue to grow as a selling point for the school.

According to Mr. Arnold, the decision to keep the stipend at $3,000 (it was $3,000 last year as well) came when the Career Services Center reported receiving a record number of applications. KLI found itself trying to raise enough money for every applicant and has been mostly successful, but is unable to raise the stipend amount this year.

“KLI elected to retain the $3,000 stipend amount in order to maximize the number of internships we could support,” said Arnold in an interview today. “The challenge is a positive one in that [Career Services and the Kravis Institute] collectively got more applications this year than have ever been received– over 180, as compared to about 130 last year.”

Although Mr. Arnold reports that the KLI will be able to support “the great majority” of applicants, he says they will not know the final numbers for at least a month because many students have applications that are not complete. This includes applicants who are waiting to hear back from their organization or are still searching for an internship. “We won’t know what the final picture will look like for another month,” says Mr. Arnold.

Since the KLI program’s pilot year five years ago, many students have come to depend on CMC’s sponsored internship program, which provides students who choose certain non-profit, unpaid internships with a stipend for living expenses such as housing and food. In the past, KLI internships have involved domestic organizations from the Heritage Foundation to Habitat for Humanity (KLI’s 2007 international internships are listed here). When asked what he would do if CMC cannot fund his internship with the Sierra Club in San Francisco, Joe Swartley ’11 says, “I don’t know what I would do… I would probably wash cars or work at a retail store to make money.”

Other sponsored internships are available through CMC, including the McKenna International Program. The McKenna International Program is in the 9^th of a 10 year gift from Donald McKenna.

Even though the program has an application process, in past years almost all students were awarded a stipend for their internships. According to Mr. Arnold, this is not subject to change, but it is obviously more difficult to raise money for over 180 students than it is for 130 students or fewer. It is a task to raise money because funds may not come from tuition or fees paid for by students themselves. “The students contribute zero to a program that last year provided over $300,000 in stipends,” says Mr. Arnold.

“Henry Kravis has provided the institute with a lot of funding, some of which has been directed toward growing the internship program,” says Mr. Arnold. “There have been major gifts in the past couple years from [CMC Trustee] Shaw B. Wagener ’81, and members of the KLI Advisory Board, such as Duane Kurisu [Parent '08], as well as others. President Gann has also been directly involved in securing funding.” Mr. Arnold emphasizes that a lot of people have been instrumental in supporting the programs, even though it is more of a collaborative effort than a centralized one.

Despite some disappointment from students who were anticipating more in funding, CMC’s sponsored internships have come a long way in the past five years when they were started. Three years ago, stipends were increased from $2,500 to $3,000. This year, more than $500,000 will be awarded in stipends.

“We want to be as supportive as possible, keeping in mind the increased demand,” says Mr. Arnold. “I understand the concern about funding… but it is a program that has grown because of the great support by the administration and through faculty involvement in the academic portion of the internships.”
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Example e-mail:

“Greetings, Your summer internship application has been received and reviewed for support by the Kravis Leadership Institute (KLI). Pending final confirmation from your organization of acceptance and responsibilities, I expect the KLI will be able to support your internship with a $3,000 stipend to cover expenses associated with your otherwise unpaid internship. Please continue to provide any additional relevant information to the Career Service Center. Additional information concerning academic requirements will be forthcoming. You will be required to attend an internship meeting in April to go over the requirements of the program. Details about this meeting will also be forthcoming.”