Wonder who will read your B-school application and decide your fate? Meet Sally Jaeger, director of admissions at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business. Contrary to popular belief, Jaeger does not sit behind a large oak desk all day, cackling as she dings applications left and right. Rather, she is a self-described “small-town person” who lives with her husband 22 miles away from campus in an 1860s farmhouse on 32 acres of rolling fields.

In between flying to Tokyo and other far-flung destinations to meet potential candidates, and scrutinizing thousands of applications, Jaeger spends her free time with two yellow Labradors, Jack and Mike, or spotting wildlife outside her kitchen window (one recent sighting: a bear with cubs).

After graduating from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in 1975 with a BA in psychology, Jaeger worked on and off in academe for 10 years, mostly in undergraduate admissions, before arriving at Dartmouth in 1993 as associate director of admissions. Appointed director three years later, Jaeger is now responsible for narrowing a field of almost 3,000 applicants to a class of 200. We caught up with her in June to get the scoop on what makes the cut at an Ivy League B-school.

MBA Jungle: How does Tuck review an application?
Jaeger: I have a team of readers, and on the initial go-round each application will have two reads. Each reader will rank the application [on a scale of 1 to 5], with a "1" being outstanding, and "5" being less than outstanding. Afterward, we spend a week in committee, reviewing all of the files again. It’s strictly an in-house committee of admissions officers. Some files are looked at five different times.

At the end, I sign all of the letters, which means I look through every single decision again before it leaves this office. Sometimes, as I’m reviewing a file one last time and signing a letter, I’ve changed decisions. Always for the good, though. Never the other way around.

MBA Jungle: What captures your attention in a candidate?
Jaeger: Someone who can put it all together—talk about why they want an MBA, and how they’re going to take the MBA experience and apply it to both short- and long-term goals. When you read an essay, you know right away when they know the answers to these questions and when they don’t. People who have had unusual professional experiences also stand out.

MBA Jungle: Could you give us an example?
Jaeger: One applicant worked for a nonprofit called the Center for Victims of Torture.

MBA Jungle: That leads to the next question: What do you consider to be good work experience?
Jaeger: I don’t think there’s any formula. We are not evaluating whether it was mainstream or nontraditional experience. We’re looking at how people have excelled at whatever they have done. Who they have worked for is not as critical as the experiences they had.

MBA Jungle: In your mind, what is the secret to writing a good essay?
Jaeger: Time. You can always tell when someone just said, “I gotta get this done. The application’s due tomorrow.” Also, one thing I always tell people is: Don’t write what you think we want to hear. Speak from within. Those are always the best essays.

MBA Jungle: If you could give one piece of insider advice to an applicant, what would it be?
Jaeger: Do your homework. Know what you’re doing. Use spell-check.

MBA Jungle: What’s the hardest question you’ve asked during an interview?
Jaeger: I try not to ask hard questions. I don’t read a file before I interview someone. I’d rather give the person an opportunity to present him- or herself to me, sight unseen. I’ll have only a few minutes to peruse the resumé, so it’s sort of an art to find something on it where you’ll both click.

MBA Jungle: You have two equally qualified applicants. You can only accept one. What is the deciding factor?
Jaeger: You try to read between the lines—and that’s when the interview becomes very important. Also, I think applicants should be very careful about who they are going to ask for letters of recommendation. The old adage is ask people to write letters who know you and have worked with you on a regular basis. You don’t want to go to the company’s CEO, who only sees you in the elevator.

MBA Jungle: What’s your range for GMAT scores?
Jaeger: This year, it’s 530 to 800 with an average score of 691. We focus more on the quantitative side of the GMAT because our program, particularly during the first year, is extremely quantitative in nature. So, if someone has a quantitative score below the 75th percentile, we’re going to focus on his or her academic transcript and professional experience. If someone is working in investment banking and crunching numbers, we might just figure that he or she didn’t test well that day.

MBA Jungle: Do you think today’s economy is affecting people’s choice to go to business school?
Jaeger: Yeah, there’s a lot out there right now about people beating down the doors of business schools because of the dot-com demise and the changing economy. I think we’ll begin to see more of that in the coming year.

MBA Jungle: Are you seeing any changes in the percentage of women students who are applying?
Jaeger: Our applicant pool for women has been pretty static: about 25 percent. We are constantly thinking of ways to increase it. We started a mentoring program for our female admitted students several years ago. It pairs newly admitted female students with recent female grads. This gives them a better sense of what is ahead of them; the program has been very successful.

We are also working with a number of other universities to recruit women at a younger age. It’s very similar to what we’ve done with minority recruiting, reaching out to prospective students when they’re in junior high and high school. The University of Michigan is spearheading this initiative.

MBA Jungle: What about international students? Are you seeing any changes or trends in that population?
Jaeger: We’re continuing to see an increase in applications from overseas. We’re actively recruiting in Europe, Latin America, and Asia. As you see trends within economies improve, you see more applications from a certain country. When I started as director of admissions, our international population was about 17 percent. Now, with some aggressive international recruiting, we’re up to 30 percent.

MBA Jungle: What do you like best about your job?
Jaeger: The people, as corny as that sounds. The staff here is wonderful—from the dean on down.

MBA Jungle: Do you think your degree in psychology helps you?
Jaeger: I probably chose psychology because I’ve always been interested in why people think the way they think. Fortunately, in this job, my normal psychology training comes into play more than my abnormal psychology background.

MBA Jungle: What do you like to do during your spare time?
Jaeger: I read a lot. I’m big runner and cross-country skier. You have to like winter sports here. I have two dogs that I spend more time talking about than I should.

MBA Jungle: When you’re in a social situation—say, a cocktail party—do you find it hard to switch off your interviewing mode?
Jaeger: Oh yes. I always find myself asking, “Where you are from? Where did you go to high school? Where do you go to college?” I always want to get at who someone is and what makes them tick.