Dawna Clarke

Executive Director of Admissions and Financial Aid

Dawna comes to Darden from mbaMission, the premier MBA consultancy founded by Darden graduate Jeremy Shinewald (MBA ‘03), where she has served as Chief MBA Strategist and Senior Consultant. Previously, Dawna served as Director of Admissions at the Tuck Graduate School of Business at Dartmouth College for 11 years. Prior to Tuck, from 1990 to 2005, she served in various leadership roles at Darden, including five years as Admissions Director and as Director of Alumni Relations. 

In her new role at Darden, Dawna will oversee admission for all degree programs — the full-time MBA and the Executive MBA, including its intensive global format, the Global Executive MBA. She will also oversee Darden’s new Future Year Scholars program, a deferred admissions program for undergraduate and fifth-year Master’s degree students. She will drive Darden’s recruitment strategy to attract all demographic groups and lead Admissions department strategies, finances, staff and operations. Working closely with Director of Financial Aid Susan Loduha, she will ensure strong financial support and service is provided to admitted students.

Poets & Quants highlights that during Clarke’s time at Tuck, women increased from 25 percent of students in the class before her arrival to a record-breaking 44 percent of the Tuck Class of 2018, and GMAT scores hit a record high of 717. For her efforts, Dawna received the Tuck Management Award and the Tuck Team Award and earned international recognition for best practices in the MBA admissions field.

She has served on multiple committees for the Graduate Management Admissions Council and the Educational Testing Service. She was also a member of the Board of Directors for the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management for 17 years.

Dawna Clarke assumed her new role on October 15, 2017.