Lindsay France/University Photography

Johnson MBA students listen to a guest speaker in Sage Hall.

Cornell’s Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management recently won top marks for its diversity and inclusion efforts.

Diversity MBA Prep, an online community that brings together women and minorities interested in pursuing MBA degrees, recognized Johnson for diversity in recruitment practices, awarding the school an overall A+ grade in its MBAdvantage: Diversity Outreach Benchmarking Report. Johnson is the only top 50 MBA program to receive the highest mark.

The report evaluated each business school’s MBA program based on four criteria: candidate perspective in terms of Web and social media, candidate perspective in terms of activities and outreach, school leadership and diversity recruitment results.

Johnson earned top marks in all categories, and overall was particularly cited for its “excellent diversity outreach efforts.”

Nsombi B. Ricketts, senior director of Johnson’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI), is proud of the evaluation and says it is a result of several initiatives ODI has launched in recent years. ODI has tripled the number of diversity recruiting partnerships, revamped the school’s website to include more resources for diverse applicants, added an LGBTQ checkbox to the full-time MBA application and launched an annual Johnson Women in Business recruiting conference.

“It is wonderful to see the amazing progress we have made in diversity and inclusion,” Ricketts said. “ODI will continue to drive these important results for the school.”

In addition, the report shows that Johnson stands out in its strong female representation among the dean’s senior staff (Johnson’s Management Committee) and is one of only 11 schools with 20 percent or more women on its advisory council. This is in contrast to the report’s findings that women are drastically underrepresented on the advisory and governing boards of top business schools, generally accounting for less than 15 percent of members.

Maria Minsker ’13 is an intern in marketing and communications at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management.