Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 466: 309 GRE, from Colombia. DUI, can it be overcome? Booth vs Harvard

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MBA Wire Taps 466: 309 GRE, from Colombia. DUI, can it be overcome? Booth vs Harvard · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker A: This is Rodrigo from Texas McCombs, and this is the Clear Admit podcast. Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm Graham Richmond, and this is your Wiretaps for Monday, January 5, 2026. Looking for an MBA experience where you're truly seen, keen, supported and inspired to grow at Vanderbilt Business. You'll discover a personalized learning environment that elevates your potential and turns ambition into action. Whether you're switching careers or accelerating your current path, the Vanderbilt MBA offers a customizable curriculum, exceptional outcomes, and a community committed to your success. Propel your future with a program invested in who you are and who you're becoming. Vanderbilt is waiving their $200 application fee for MBA Wiretaps listeners, the to learn more about the Vanderbilt MBA program and to claim your application fee waiver, Visit Business Vanderbilt. Edu ClearAdmit. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Happy 26, Alex.
• 1:14
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, very good. Happy New Year to everybody. What's your New Year's resolution, Graham?
• 1:18
  Speaker A: Oh, boy, that's a good one. I don't know. I think I'd like to run 20k. Like, I've never made it to 20, so maybe that's one that I'll try to do this year.
• 1:28
  Speaker B: Nice one. I ran 10k this morning.
• 1:30
  Speaker A: Oh, excellent. Yeah, 10 I'm good at. I just need to get, you know, and I've done 15, maybe even 17, I think, but I need to try to work up to 20, so that'll be my, my, my. Now, now I'm on the record. I also want to extend a happy and healthy new year to all of our listeners. And I also just wanted to say, Alex and I, we, you know, I mean, I don't want to speak for you, Alex, but I think. I mean, we both have a lot of gratitude for everyone who kind of tunes in. And occasionally we get these emails from people who listen, you know, every week or they're in their car or, you know, just any way that we can make the journ business school a little bit more enjoyable, or your commute, whatever you're doing when you're listening, we really appreciate it. So I'm grateful at this time of year as we kind of kick off the next season and stuff.
• 2:11
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Very good.
• 2:12
  Speaker A: So this week we have a lot going on. I've got kind of a battle of Philly and New York, where we've got employment reports from Wharton and Columbia to talk through. We have a real humans all the way from Switzerland at San Gallen University, which is not Too far from Zurich. So we connected with current students there and we also have a bunch of admissions tips. And as usual, Alex, you've picked out a handful of candidates to discuss. And one decision wire dilemma I did want to mention. We have some events coming up now that we're in January. On January 28th we have this webinar we're going to do about an mba. And does the MBA still open doors for you? The Truth about Growth, Leadership, and what comes next. That's January 28th at 10am Eastern and then in February on the 4th and the 11th. Also while those are at noon Eastern. Sorry that we're doing our deferred enrollment events and we're going to connect with Carnegie Mellon, mit, Yale, Berkeley, Stanford, Columbia, Wharton and uva Darden. There may be some additional schools on that list. I need to check with Mike on our team because that was like the early list. But anyway, those events are all happening. You can go to clearadmit.com.com events to sign up. Alex, I don't know if you saw this, but we have this article that we put together that ran last week that's like a clear Admit year in review and with some predictions as well. Right. And so I had a lot of fun reading this when we were putting it together. I mean, it was kind of, you know, what were some of the most popular podcast episodes, popular YouTube videos, no surprise here. The live stream that we did about where we talked about a conversation about AI in applications. It was one of our most popular YouTube videos, but it was just a lot of fun. And do you want to share what your prediction was? Do you remember what you wrote in that article? I thought it was an interesting.
• 4:01
  Speaker B: Well, I think the GRE is going to be more popular than the gmat.
• 4:04
  Speaker A: Yeah, that was a big. I mean, we have.
• 4:07
  Speaker B: I assume that's what was printed. I haven't actually read the article, but.
• 4:11
  Speaker A: That was your prediction. I saw that and I was like, oh. I mean, I could see it happening because we do see an increasingly kind of balanced use of those two tests in business school. So I don't know, we'll see what happens when the dust settles at the end of the cycle. And when schools kind of share their data. Not all of them share this stuff, but we get a sense of it from Livewire and various posts on the site. But yeah, an interesting one. And I know Elliot on our team had a prediction about business schools introducing more and more specialized masters for young professionals or even people just out of university to help give them the tools they need, I think, specifically when it comes to AI and business. So, anyway, that article's on the site. It's a lot of fun. Check it out if you have a moment.
• 4:55
  Speaker B: I'm going to get back to my prediction, though, because you brought it up now. So why will the GRE become more popular than the gmat? Frankly, it opens up more access to more different opportunities, but also it's considered a slightly easier test in terms of prep, taking, etc. Etc. Or at least that's the conventional wisdom. And if GMAC is convinced that the GMAT is a better test, a better predictor of academic performance in that first year at school, which I do believe they still, they still commit to, then they need to convince schools to push the gmat. And schools aren't.
• 5:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's.
• 5:41
  Speaker B: I don't think there are any schools now. There might be one or two. Maybe LBs still does. Maybe one or two, but most schools are now saying you just take whatever test you can. And that's a real problem for gmat, I think.
• 5:57
  Speaker A: Yeah. There's some perverse incentives in the system. Right. Because you have the rankings and you know, people for one reason or not. The GMAT is still kind of the king when it comes to people looking at like, oh, what's the average test score at a school like the gmat?
• 6:10
  Speaker B: That won't last.
• 6:11
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 6:11
  Speaker B: And so, well, as soon as GRE becomes more popular. Yeah, it'll flip to gre. Right.
• 6:17
  Speaker A: So we'll see. I think, you know, I do. I really do firmly believe that the GMAT exam is a better test for business school. And many admissions officers will tell you that off the record. Right. They'll say, yeah, this test is designed for business school. But they have this sort of weird incentive where it's like, well, we just want to admit the best people we can and. And if they're taking whatever. There's a whole number of things that have happened that led to this, one of which was Covid. The other was the introduction of the new version of the GMAT exam. And there's a little bit of a race to the bottom with these tests getting shorter and easier. And so, I don't know, it's a complicated landscape. And we really like the folks over at GMAC and all the work they do. We collaborate with GMAC a lot. We also work a little bit with ets who make the gre. So we're more just sort of on the sidelines. Yeah. It is an interesting way that things have evolved and I never would have imagined this even a handful of years ago that we would get sort of parody.
• 7:17
  Speaker B: And the trend line says my prediction is going to be true and GMAT really needs to sort this out.
• 7:24
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's complicated. So anyway, we'll see how all these predictions go. There were a couple of others in the article too that I encourage people to check out and also just some fun stuff that you can, you know, articles that were popular, et cetera. So if you want a greatest hits list, it's a good place to start. We also, because it's so busy right now with people applying in round two or weighing round one offers, we continued to push out a bunch of admissions tips. So we have one about negotiating scholarships for business school that's a must read if you're in a position of trying to figure out weighing those offers from round one and wanting to kind of see if you can negotiate scholarship dollars. Check that out. We also did three admissions tips for people who are applying right now. I know there are a lot of deadlines this week and Alex, I want you to get into that actually in a second. But so we have admissions tips around data forms, how to fil those out, whether you should submit an optional essay and also how to just show an MBA program that you mean business, you know, that you've really done your homework. But Alex, why should people be worrying about that right now? Because this is, I mean, this week I think there are more than 20 deadlines, right, for round two.
• 8:28
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think when we counted it was about 29 deadlines for the programs that we follow. It's easier for me, quite honestly, to list the top programs that don't have deadlines next week. That list is short. It's Stern, Sloan, McCombs, Marshall and INSEAD.
• 8:48
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 8:48
  Speaker B: Every other of the big programs that we cover has a round, has a deadline next week, mostly round two, some round three or whatever. But it's going to be extraordinarily busy in terms of submissions from today Monday, several schools like Harvard. So if Harvard kicks off on today, that that really gets everyone going. Harvard top, Ross, Kelly, and so forth. But yeah, all throughout the week, close to 30 programs. So yeah, the five programs that don't have deadlines next week, Stern, Sloan, McCombs, Marshall, INSEAD. Everyone else seems to be convinced that the first week of January is the right time to get people back and get applications in.
• 9:37
  Speaker A: Yeah, all between the 5th and the 9th. So it's crazy. Good luck to everyone who's still putting the finishing touches on those apps this week. To get them in. In other news, Alex, we did, as I mentioned at the top of the show, connect with current students at the University of St. Gallen, which is out in a beautiful little village in Switzerland, not too far from Zurich, but off in the countryside a bit. We connected with. I'm going to mispronounce her name, I think, but her first name is Yoser. I think that's how you say it. And Yoser is 27, from Tunis, Tunisia, and had gone to the University of Geneva to do a bachelor's and a master's both in pharmacy. And so had taken the Swiss federal exam in pharmacy and settled into a career as a pharmacist, working in both retail and maybe even on the kind of corporate side. Did that for about three years and now is getting the MBA at St. Gallen to sort of pivot and more to the kind of pure business side of the healthcare sector. But we asked what is one thing you would absolutely do again as part of the application process? And Yossir said I'd take the time again to really sit with my why. I remember journaling, trying to understand what I was looking for beyond the degree that reflection made the application feel less like a performance and more like a conversation with myself. If I had one piece of advice, it would be to stay bold, trust your story, don't over edit yourself and just go for it. Authenticity reads louder than perfection. So I, I love that last line when you're thinking about essays.
• 11:15
  Speaker B: Yeah, I know, it's absolutely fantastic. And I completely agree. Authenticity is way more important than that very much. Fine tuning Perfection is the, etc. Etc. So, so yeah, know some great, great advice there, I think.
• 11:30
  Speaker A: Yeah. And now I, you know, I didn't say at the top of the show when we were talking about our predictions, but I put a prediction into the article as well, which was that schools in the admissions side of things would rely increasingly less on materials that can be polished and perfected by AI tools and increasingly more on those elements of the application process, like an interview or a standardized test or a transcript of grades or even a live real time kind of exercise online that you can't, you know, where they're not giving you enough time to kind of perfect or polish. So we'll see what happens. But that's my, that was my prediction on kind of how things are going to evolve in admissions. So yeah, any event, we will see. Let's talk employment reports. I'm going to give you Wharton first and then we'll talk about Columbia. But Both of them are in for the class of 25. And so Wharton had a graduating class size of 879 students. That's down a tick. They were at 916 the year before. So 37 fewer students this year for one reason or another. Of that, 69.2% were seeking employment. That number is virtually unchanged from last year. And they did give figures on, well, what are those people who aren't seeking doing? And the lion's share of them were returning to their prior employer. There are like 100 and some students who are going back to a prior employer. And then there was another big handful that were doing startups and then a smaller batch who were, you know, kind of going to continue with other education, I guess, some people doing, you know, like joint degrees. So within the group, though, that was seeking that, nearly 70% of the class, 90% had an offer within three months of graduation, and 87% had accepted an offer. The compensation that these folks are reporting as a median was 185,000 doll. That's up $10,000 from last year's figure of 175. In terms of the industries that people are going into, 38.2% went into financial services. That's up nearly 2% from last year. Consulting is the next most popular area at 28.2%. And that's up 3% from last year. Technology, 15.3%. That's also up about 1% from the year prior. 5% went into healthcare. That's unchanged. And then they had a category that they didn't have last year, which. The fifth category, which is legal and professional services, 2.5%. So those are the industry placements. In terms of where people landed geographically, 54.5% landed in the Northeast. That's up 7.7% from last year. 19.2% headed to the West Coast. That's down a little bit from 21.5% last year. 10.3% stayed in the Mid Atlantic. That's off about 2% from last year. 4.3% went to the Midwest, 3.8% to the Southwest, and 6% headed overseas. Those numbers are all fairly similar to last year. Was that kind of interesting? Alex, I'm curious to get your take on this, but I noted that they grew consulting, finance, and tech simultaneously, and each of those three categories kind of coming up a bit. But what do you make of Wharton's numbers?
• 14:45
  Speaker B: Yeah, obviously I'd be interested to hear Columbia's numbers and talk about them a little bit more in context of each other. But yeah, the bump in starting salary is interesting. 185. So that's notable, I should say, not necessarily interesting, the 69% at par, but it's nice to know that the reason for that and the hundred or so sponsors students, I think will see a bigger trend in that regard over the next next couple of years for several programs. And yeah, the split in terms of finance, consulting, tech looks very good. You know, nothing really that stands out to me. So I think the average starting salary bump is the most notable data point that you reveal, Graeme.
• 15:37
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's fair. And I think, you know, again, good numbers. We've been seeing this through all the reports that we've been sharing. Pretty good numbers overall. Yeah. Let's turn to Columbia Business School. So class of 25 again, 900 students in the class. They actually grew their class by 56 students. So Columbia is becoming a very large program. They have that January start as well as the September start, and they have the new campus for a few years now. And so they've been growing a little bit. So they're 900 students. They did not share the percentage seeking employment. They didn't share that last year or this year for one reason or another. The percentage of people who were seeking who received an offer, though, they said, is 92%. And that's up from 89% last year. So within three months of graduation, 92% of those who wanted a job out of Columbia had an offer. In terms of accepted, 90.2% had accepted an offer, and that's up as well from 86.4% last year. So some bumps there on the Columbia side in terms of offers received and offers accepted. In terms of the base salary, the median was $175,000. That's unchanged. They also did share that the average signing bonus was about $30,000. That's unchanged as well. Wharton didn't share that data, but I'm guessing it's a similar figure in terms of the industries that people went into. 35.4% went into financial services. That's virtually unchanged. 30.6% went into consulting, identical to last year's number. 10.2% went into technology. That' up 0.2%. So again, virtually the same. Then. The next most popular areas were real estate, 3.8%, consumer products, 3.7%. So. And neither of those were reported last year because healthcare and media entertainment were ahead of those two categories last year. So they rounded out the five most popular areas in terms of the regional placement. Columbia is the only top school in the US that does this very strange thing, which is that they do not share placements within the U.S. they just say 82% of the class got a job in the United States, 7% went to Asia, 4% to Europe, 5% to Central or South America, and 2% to Africa and the Middle East. These numbers are pretty similar to last year, although last year 79% stayed in the States. So they have slightly more people staying in the U.S. this year at 82%, but they don't tell you where in the U.S. but, Alex, I'll let you unpack that. What do you make of Columbia's numbers?
• 18:12
  Speaker B: Yeah, again, they're very decent. No movement in the top recruiter industries. So I think that's fine. 175k is kind of becoming the bottom figure for M7. When I say bottom figure, it's still a very good number. But they're tending now to go from 175 to 185, like Wall and so forth. But, you know, it held steady from last year. As you say, they don't provide the regional stats. But, you know, we can presume that there's a high percentage that are getting there that are going off into New York City post mba. And there's a good reason for that. Right. Lots of folks select to attend Columbia because they want to be in New York City. In the longer run, New York City is the business capital of the United States. So I just got to imagine that the reason why they don't declare those numbers is they don't want to deter folks that potentially might actually want to do something different.
• 19:20
  Speaker A: Yeah, right.
• 19:21
  Speaker B: You know, go off somewhere else because, you know, they're going to be highly New York centric.
• 19:27
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's an interesting, like, sort of quandary because I actually feel like they would benefit from just sharing this number. And, you know, Stern across town does it and you can see that, like certain places, like, I can't remember what is 80% or more of their class in the Northeast, but that's not. I don't think that's anything to be ashamed of. I mean, on the one hand, you have Columbia constantly reminding us that they're in New York and New York is the place to be and that that's a key asset of the school. But then on the other hand, they don't share the regional breakdown, which I find odd. And I think, you know, other schools, even on the west coast, they sort of embrace that. It's like, hey, a high percentage of Our class are staying out west. That's, you know, probably why a lot of people come out here, you know, so I don't. Yeah, I feel like they could do it and it wouldn't hur their brand or make them look like a kind of, you know, local player only or something. I mean, that people know. But, you know, you go to New York, there's tons of opportunity there. It's a great place to be.
• 20:16
  Speaker B: So I think they are the only top school that doesn't do this.
• 20:19
  Speaker A: That's correct. Yeah. So any event, it is what it is. We're. We'll see if they change their. Their strategy going forward. But overall, you're right. I think both schools saw very consistent numbers. A slight uptick in salary at Wharton, but you know, overall, pretty healthy placement stats coming out of these top schools.
• 20:37
  Speaker B: Yeah, very good.
• 20:38
  Speaker A: Yeah. All right, so I wanted to say that we'd still love to get your reviews, ratings, or subscribe to the show if you can. All those things help us to get this podcast in front of more people, which is our goal. We really want to help as many people as possible as they're navigating the MBA admissions process. But, Alex, I don't have anything else. So should we talk about this week's candidates?
• 20:59
  Speaker B: Let's kick on.
• 21:00
  Speaker A: All right, so this is WireTaps candidate number one. Our first candidate this week is applying to five schools, and they are going to be doing so in round two here. So literally getting these apps in this week to Berkeley, Tuck, Harvard, MIT and Stanford. I guess MIT will be next week. Right. But anyway, they want to start in the fall. They've been working in marketing, but they did mention that they had started out as a lawyer before pivoting into marketing, which is their current career post, mba. They're thinking about doing their own thing, being an entrepreneur. This candidate is based in Colombia. They have a 309 on the GRE and a 3.2 undergraduate GPA, five years of work experience. And they also say that, you know, they have a strong knowledge and experience with coding, stock investing, and venture capital. And they then have this little caveat at the end of their post where they say, I will repeat the gre, as in retake the GRE if I get wait listed. And so, you know, they. They did also specify they'd love to land in Latin America after business school and that they're currently working for the biggest pension fund in Colombia. Alex, you had some dialogue with this candidate, so I want you to kind of fill in. In on that front. Because you right away asked them a question and went back and forth on it. So I'd love to hear your take on this candidacy. Again, someone from Colombia applying to kind of what I would call top 10, you know, U.S. schools.
• 22:29
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, for sure. And my comments were on the assumption that they do have really interesting experience, they've done well at work, they're entrepreneurial, they've got some really strong ideas for what they want to do when they come back to Colombia, so they can articulate that really effectively in their. Their applications. So I would imagine that side of their profile will look really strong. Right. So that's my assumption. But the 309 GRE is a real issue. I think you read out the names of the schools that they're targeting. They're quite ambitious with these target programs. So to me, I think what they need to do is retake the gre, regardless of whether they end up on the waitlist or not, and try to timeline that so that the a better GRE score comes in prior to when schools start making decisions for interview invites. Yeah, so they've probably got about a month to prep really, really hard and push that GRE score up into something closer to the medians of these programs. And if they can do that, yeah, maybe a really interesting entrepreneur from Colombia with really strong ideas of what they want to do, really good sort of track record to date with what they've done, could be a really attractive candidate. But I do think that 309 right now is going to be a real bottleneck.
• 24:08
  Speaker A: Yeah, I could not agree more. I mean, I looked at the profile. I said, wait, so the GPA is a 3.2, which is below average for these top schools, and maybe they studied in Colombia and had a very rigorous education, and that. That's a converted GPA or something, I don't know. But still, it's not jumping off the page. And then you see this GRE which jumps off the page, but for the wrong reason. I mean, this person is at least, what, 14 points below the average at all of their target schools, and in some cases, 20 points points below the average. And that's a red flag to me. And the other thing that makes it worse is that this is a lawyer who pivoted into marketing, and while they claim they have great knowledge in coding and stock investing and some, I guess, what you could call more quantitative skill, I'm worried that if the GRE quant score is low, this person just gets labeled as not being at the level required to do the work in Business school on the quantitative side, which is a common issue for lawyers. Right. Someone with a legal background or a marketing background, we often get a little nervous about can they handle the finance, the econ, the stats, et cetera, that they're going to be thrown at, that's going to be thrown at them in the first semester of business school. So I worried when I saw this comment, I will repeat the gre. If I got waitlisted, my first thought was, you may not have a chance. They may just reject you. They're not going to just wait list you. They may just rule you out, period. So, as you say, take that test immediately or at least before those interview decisions are made, because I want to keep them in the running and I worry they're going to be ruled out if they don't have a better score.
• 25:38
  Speaker B: Yeah. And it'll be sort of early February when those interview invites start coming out. So I give them a month. But I think they need to study really hard.
• 25:47
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 25:47
  Speaker B: And really push for, you know, any increase is going to help.
• 25:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, but agreed.
• 25:54
  Speaker B: You know, really push, like you say, close to the median.
• 25:56
  Speaker A: Right. Because as you said, they, you know, if they have a 320 or, you know, somewhere 322, they're still low. But you might say, like you said, really interesting profile. They've converted from the legal field to marketing and now working in kind of finance. I mean, they've done some. And they have some interesting goals. Like it could work, but right now it's a stretch. So they need to retake this test.
• 26:15
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 26:15
  Speaker A: All right. I want to thank them for sharing their profile. Let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two, our second candidate this week has just a few schools on the target list. They're looking at Harvard, Kellogg and Wharton. And they are applying now in the.
• 26:34
  Speaker B: Second round next year, I think.
• 26:36
  Speaker A: Oh, sorry, you're right. Yeah, next year. And so an early bird. This person is an investment banker, and this person's female. She wants to use the MBA to go from investment banking to private equity and, you know, has a number of firms that she would be interested in. GPA was a 3.5 in undergrad, has been working for 3 years or maybe be 3 by the time they matriculate. That's unclear here. Located in New York, wants to stay there after business school, interestingly enough, doesn't have the New York schools on the target list, but maybe wants a break from. From New York before coming back. But the reason you picked this candidate, Alex, is because she Shared some interesting kind of facts here. So aside from the fact that, you know, she's been doing really well at, at work and, and, you know, been banking for three years and strong, you know, will have strong recommendations, went to a strong undergrad, she's, you know, thinks that the GRE is going to go really well, which she's going to be taking soon. But when she was a senior in college, she had a DUI driving under influence and it claims that she wrote the lowest level. So I guess there are different levels to a DUI that you can get based on how much alcohol is in your system. She said, I completed all the necessary steps afterwards and it has in no way impacted my job performance. But she's concerned about Harvard, Wharton and Kellogg. You know, is, is the DUI going to really impact her ability to get into one of these top schools? So what do you make of this, Alex?
• 28:05
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think this is really a difficult situation. I mean, it seems quite clear from what she's articulated that she's actually done well, done very well at work. She, I think she said she's going to get really strong recommendations. She's been a top achiever. She's doing investment banking, I think, in the sort of data center space. So it's really topical stuff, etc. Etc. I think her outside of work stuff is decent. So on the surface, this looks like a really, really strong candidate, perhaps more of a potential superstar and so on and so forth, especially if they can come in with that sort of higher bound of the GRE, sort of closer to the 330. She's got plenty of time. She can take the test, you can reset the test to get that optimal score. But this dui, you know, you get sort of almost like a visceral reaction. Okay, what, what, what's happened here and how, how is ADCOM going to interpret that? But I think despite the dui, she has done well. So she's already had to overcome this dui, presumably in job interviews, in various other things, and she's sort of been able to navigate that and do well. I think she's got to be very upfront about it and, you know, talk about the harsh lesson that she's experienced as a result of it, how potentially this situation has made her a better human being and, and, and, and move on. Right. You know, at the end of the day, other very, very top schools going to take her or not. Well, we'll only know if she applied. Right. And I do think a school will take a shot and it might well be the very, very top school. Yeah, if she approaches it in the right fashion. I mean, we all make mistakes in life, Graham. It's how do we handle those mistakes and how do we develop from those mistakes and how do we own those mistakes, etc. Etc. Right. That's a huge piece of how we teach leadership and stuff like that. Right. So that's what she's going to have to do and I think it's very doable.
• 30:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. So one thing she said in her comments that I really like, she said that she, I, I, she said this was a one time hiccup and has no way impacted my job performance or life. After the event, I plan to disclose it maturely and succinctly in the additional info section. So I think she has the right idea here, which is to just take the bull by the horns, own it. I mean, I think when she's saying it hasn't impacted her life or had any, I mean, I think she obviously learned a lesson. So I don't think she's saying that, but she's just, I think she's trying to tell us that, you know, it's not like she's has problems with alcohol since or anything like that. Right. So I, I, for me, if she can get a high test score to pair with that 3, 5 from a good school and her very impressive banking career. She also is very active with women's events. She's in a running club, she has a lot of other things going on. So I view her as a compelling candidate. If you were to take the DUI out of this equation, it's like, yeah, this person's an obvious solid candidate for top schools again, assuming the GRE goes well. So yeah, I think she's got the right idea. Just disclose it in the optional essay. Don't make excuses, own it. And yeah, it's a learning experience and obviously she's gone on to do really impressive things since, so I feel like she'll be okay.
• 31:39
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you know, full disclosure, I'm quite lucky I never had a dui. I mean, we'll leave it at that. But the point is she made a stupid mistake. Yeah, right. I don't think that she, you know, because you have a DUI when you were a senior in college, that automatically signals, oh, this person has a problem with alcohol.
• 32:00
  Speaker A: Right, right, right. Yeah, that's fair.
• 32:01
  Speaker B: So those are two very distinct issues there. Yeah, she made a stupid mistake. Many of us get away with those stupid mistakes and she didn't but she's got to own it, and she's got to be very upfront about it, Lessons learned, et cetera, et cetera. I really hope that this works out for her.
• 32:18
  Speaker A: Yeah, same. And I think it's. It's great that she's, you know, asking this question. And I will say, I said this to you before we came on air that. I mean, I think it does help that she's not, like, super overrepresented in the candidate point. Right. She's a woman in finance and with strong extracurriculars. She's got a lot going for her. And it's not like a school could say, oh, yeah, she's a CUI. But we have 20 other people that look exactly like her who don't have it. You know, I think she's unique enough and going to be sought after enough in the application process that she can. Can navigate this.
• 32:47
  Speaker B: Yeah, very good.
• 32:49
  Speaker A: All right, let's. Yeah. So I want to thank her for sharing that information, and hopefully she does as well as she works towards applying next season. Let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number three. So our final entry this week actually comes from someone who posted to Decision Wire. This person applied to Chicago Booth, Harvard, mit, Stanford, Wharton and Yale. And they ended up getting accepted to Booth, Harvard, mit, Wharton and Yale. So they, they did really well. They didn't get in at Stanford, but they. Let's give you the numbers. They had a 685 on the GMAT Focus Edition. That's a stellar score. That's up in the, you know, what is that? 740, 750. Somewhere in there, I think they had a 3.9 undergraduate GPA. And they presented us with a dilemma. They said, I got into the MBA mpcs, which is a computer science master's, at Booth with a scholarship. So they have $130,000 scholarship being handed to them at Booth for that joint degree. But they said they're still stuck between Booth and Harvard and they're wondering if it's worth passing up the Harvard name, resources and network to save money and earn a second degree. Now you kind of asked them about, you know, well, what about the second degree and how much money might they get from hbs. And they revealed that they've done the simulator for the Need Based Aid at Harvard and that they won't get anything. So, Alex, what should this person do? Should they go and get the joint degree at Booth and save $130,000, or should they go off to Harvard and just get the MBA but be in debt.
• 34:27
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I think again, this is a difficult choice and it's a very personal choice, depending on sort of their sort of risk tolerance for debt and so on and so forth. The fact that they won't get any needs based money from Harvard does signal to me that maybe they can be a bit more risk tolerant and so on and so forth. Right. So presumably they've got some resources to be able to actually go to Harvard. And to me, in the long run it's like make the decision that will minimize regret. And I know Elliot sort of talked about this on our team and so forth. And this is very difficult to do when you think about in the shorter term, not, you know, with a huge scholarship at the other school, etc. Etc. And the other thing that comes to play in this choice is obviously the second degree. So getting a master's in computer science. What's the value add there? And they've got to really think about that, I think, because, you know, I could be a bit flippant and say, well actually I learned Python myself by watching YouTube videos like last year because I was quite curious what was going on in this AI world. Right. Now I'm not saying that Booth's computer science program is the equivalent of YouTube or anything like that, but I do think you can use online tools to brush up on various niche areas that you're interested in in the computer science domain specifically because it is effectively just learning it. Not just learning languages, but it is learning languages. Right. So, you know, and you know, when they go to Harvard, can they not take some computer science courses at an HBS or, you know, Harvard more generally? I would explore that too. I just, I do think this is a really hard decision. I don't think it's one or the other in an obvious way, but turning down Harvard is always going to be something that some folks will, will have a hard, hard time doing or thinking about in the future.
• 36:41
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's an interesting dilemma. I mean I, I will say, although.
• 36:44
  Speaker B: You did turn down Harvard, Graham. So I don't think about disclosure.
• 36:47
  Speaker A: I don't think about it that much, to be honest. But I, but I, yeah, I had my reasons to go to Wharton and, but I, I think it's in this case, I, I do think that, I mean they, they have this comment, they said when it comes to this, certain of master's in computer science, they say master's in computer science might make it a differentiator on my resume, but I'm not Sure. By how much? Especially if I'm not going into technical product management. So I do wonder if maybe they just take a couple of electives while they're at HBS over at Harvard University and call it a day. But I will say also that this is a very personal decision. As you point out, $130,000 scholarship is nothing to take light. That is something that would go on your resume. You can say full tuition scholarship to attend this program. That always looks good on the resume too. I would ask them though to think about the cultures. These schools are really different. They're both top M7 schools, but they have very different cultures and different methods of instruction. I would argue that Booth is probably one of the more flexible, kind of open ended, choose your own adventure sort of way through the two year mba. And Harvard sits at the other end of that spectrum being a much more rigid. Everyone takes the same exact classes the entire first year kind of thing. Right. So they need to sort of think about that and where would they fit in? Where would they be comfortable as well. So there are a lot of factors here and I think you're right, it's not an easy choice here because there's a lot of money at stake. But as you said, maybe they have a lot of money in the bank and they shouldn't be as focused on that.
• 38:27
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, who knows? It's a really big first world problem. Best to look for them for making the right choice. And obviously they're going to be admiring submit events that they can go to to really help them think through this and sort of really engage and network with current students and alums of each of these programs to really see where they truly fit.
• 38:50
  Speaker A: Yeah, I would definitely go to those welcome events. Yeah. Figure, figure it out and, and, and think, think long and hard about that extra degree. I mean, I presume it's going to add a year to their time in school.
• 39:00
  Speaker B: No, they say it.
• 39:01
  Speaker A: Well, it's not. Okay. So it's all. Yeah, yeah.
• 39:03
  Speaker B: Because that was one other thing that I was thinking. It's like, does it an opportunity cost if you're going to be okay, so it's two years, another year.
• 39:09
  Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. Boy. Yeah, this is tricky. I don't have the answer. Hopefully us like sort of BSing about it for the last five minutes helps them think about at least some of the issues and, and get a little closer to a decision. I do want to congratulate them on these pretty impressive results. I mean they round the table with the exception of Stanford. So hats off to them for these results. And as you say, first world champagne problems that they've got to deal with. But best of luck, Alex. We've done it again. We spent almost 40 minutes chatting through everything that's happen in the NBA admissions world. Thanks for picking out these candidates. And yeah, let's do it all again next week.
• 39:42
  Speaker B: Very good. Best luck, everyone. Stay safe.