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MBA Wire Taps 483: Darden for West Coast? Johnson vs Scheller. Fuqua vs IESE · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:16
  Speaker A: Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm Graham Richmond and this is your Wiretaps for Monday, March 30, 2026. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. How are things this week, Alex?
• 0:28
  Speaker B: Very good, thank you, Graham.
• 0:30
  Speaker A: So for this show we've got some thoughts on choosing between offers because now obviously we're, you know, it's busy, busy decision season. We also have some insights into getting into Berkeley Haas via the deferred enrollment program. And the Real Humans alumni series continues this week with alumni working at PepsiCo and Meta. And we've got some pretty interesting decision wire dilemmas to discuss. So this is a chock full of decisions episode. But Alex, what's been going on? I mean, this has been a busy time, right? We've had all the big decisions come out, I think for the most part. But anything that's happening this week or things we should know about, it's not
• 1:07
  Speaker B: over till it's over. Wharton's going to release decisions this week. London Business School, Stanford, Sloan, Darden and Owen, so.
• 1:14
  Speaker A: Oh, wow. Okay. Wow. Yeah. And I know, you know, you can always tell how application volume is in a given season by the number of emails you get from schools saying, hey, you know, we're doing a webinar about round three applications and why you should apply in round three. And I've seen a few of those this year, which makes me think, you know, maybe it's not a bad year to apply in a late round. So we'll see, I guess.
• 2:01
  Speaker B: Yeah, very good.
• 2:03
  Speaker A: One other thing I wanted to mention, this is really important. We're currently running a survey, a study to better understand how MBA candidates research programs and evaluate the value of an mba. And so we want to hear from, you know, people who might be applying to business school down the road, people who've just applied and maybe are sitting on some offers, and even first year students. I don't think any first year students still listen to this show. If they are listening, maybe we need to call someone. But in any event, want to hear from those populations. And this is a survey we're running. It's just launched and you can access it by just going to bit lysurveymba26. That's all lowercase. So please take the survey if you're a listener, if you listen to the show. We really appreciate it when people take part in these surveys. It's so helpful to us and to the schools that we work with to just better understand the candidate pool. So a little plug there at the start. But yeah, really want to make sure people know about it.
• 2:58
  Speaker B: I think we might have one or two listeners that are in their first year. I'm hoping.
• 3:03
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 3:03
  Speaker B: Yes. Who knows?
• 3:05
  Speaker A: I think. Yeah, there are people who sometimes write and say, yeah, I still turn it on. Just, you know, it's like out of habit or, you know, to see what we're up to. So.
• 3:12
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 3:13
  Speaker A: Yeah. And we welcome that.
• 3:15
  Speaker B: Absolutely.
• 3:16
  Speaker A: Other than that, the usual plugs go to clearadmit.com, if you want to join us in May at any of our big events. We've got the NBA Fair on May 11th in Atlanta. That's in person. And then we're going to do virtual events on the 19th, 20th, 26th and 27th, all at noon Eastern with business school admissions directors to just talk through the application process. That's for kind of folks, you know, thinking about applying in the coming cycle. Otherwise. Alex, I've got some good stuff that we've been doing on the website. So you may recall we had those great sessions around deferred enrollment with a lot of top schools, and we've been sort of mining the quotes and comments from those sessions to produce some sort of a set of articles about deferred enrollment. And so we recently published one about Berkeley Haas, and it was interesting just to hear what Verse Gabrielle, who took part in the webinar for Haas, had to say. So listen to this. In deferred enrollment or we're evaluating these candidates based on potential. We don't know the full polished outcome. We're really focused on how you think, how you use your time and the choices that you're making right now. There is no true right candidate. It's really about authenticity. It's about your reflection. It's about your intentionality and how you present your story. And then Verse went on to explain that the interviewers only have access to your resume, advising candidates to approach it thoughtfully. And I thought this was a great comment. Your resume should be treated like another essay. So anyway, some comments, and there's a whole bunch in this article. But if you're interested in HAAS and you're thinking about deferred, really critical stuff. But I thought it was interesting how the resume could be thought of as kind of like an essay.
• 4:58
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, it's telling your story, right. It's telling it in a bit more of a, I guess, perfunctory manner. But nevertheless, it's a device to tell your story. And I would encourage folks to use use our AI bots, ask Clear, admit to fine Tune your resume.
• 5:18
  Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
• 5:19
  Speaker B: You know, because obviously it's trained on, on how what an MBA resume should look like and so forth.
• 5:25
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I can't underline this enough, but like, every time we've ever done like an event where an admissions director has talked about a resume or offered a tip or any article we've published about resumes or, you know, anything that we've ever sort of said is kind of in the bot. And so that's how we trained the bot. So it really is a great tool. And you can just. Yeah, you can use it on the site. There's a little icon for Ask Clear Admit. Great idea for people to use that. Speaking of advice, we did do an admissions tip about choosing between business schools. And this episode is unusual in that we're going to talk about three decision wire dilemmas on this show. And so it's very apropos that the admissions tip for this week is about how you can choose between schools. And we have all these kind of little tidbits of advice in the article we ran, but essentially, you know, there's some, there's some good stuff in there. The first thing is just about immersing yourself. So like we always say, go to the welcome event, talk to alumni, talk to students, really get drink, you know, drink in the school that your schools that you're considering and then consider your immediate priorities as well, was a tip that we gave, which means think about, you know, the teaching style, the location. Like, think about those two years that you're going to spend and, you know, that first job maybe that you want out of business school. But then our next tip was also about, like, looking beyond that too. So making sure that you're thinking about the very long term and thinking really big. And obviously taking into account the fact that not all offers are equal. There may be scholarship dollars, ranking differences and, you know, all these things. So there's a ton of advice in this piece, but I think it's very timely given where we are with all these discussions, decisions coming in, and hopefully many of our listeners having to choose between programs.
• 7:09
  Speaker B: Yes, very good.
• 7:11
  Speaker A: Real Humans continues. This week I pulled out a couple that I wanted to share. I'll start with Jonathan, who is a Kellogg grad. He just graduated in 25 and he's now an associate manager at PepsiCo. He's 28. He hails from Brookfield, Wisconsin, and he went to Notre Dame for undergrad and then, as I said, studied at Kellogg. He focused on strategic strategy, management, analytics and finance while he was at Kellogg. And he mentioned that he had worked as a senior consultant for Ernst and Young for four years across a whole bunch of industries prior to joining Kellogg and that he's joined Pepsi in kind of a strategy and biz dev role. And he basically said he works on M and A and partnership strategy supporting the company's food portfolio. One thing that he would change or do differently as part of his job search, that was a question we asked him and he said I would focus more on quality rather than quantity in applications and networking. MBA students, myself included, often apply to any role that sounds somewhat interesting, but investing more time building deeper connections with a smaller set of companies is often more effective. So that was his kind of job search advice. And then the other thing we asked him was whether he just wished he had any general advice during the mba. And he said, I wish someone had advised me to have more career conversations with classmates. Programs like Kellogg have no shortage of career resources. But one of the greatest resources is the people I sat next to each day. Some of the most valuable insights I gained came from simple conversations over lunch or between classes, learning about others experiences and career goals to help clarify what I wanted and what I didn't. So pretty good advice from Jonathan, who's Kellogg grad at Pepsi.
• 9:02
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I love that second piece of advice because obviously with these large class sizes at a program like Kellogg, there is so a real wealth of insight across your classmates. So how to best leverage that I think is, is really super interesting. But yeah, and the four, the first piece of advice is very good, but it's, it's, it's difficult, isn't it? You know, as a, as an MBA candidate seeking that, that role post mba, you're bound to start off by maybe spreading yourself a little thin in terms of looking at opportunities because you don't know early in the process what, what your hit rate's going to be. Right. How successful you can be. Um, so, so I can understand that's quite a significant challenge.
• 9:51
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, agreed. Um, but anyway, good advice from him. And the next, the next one I wanted to share is Vishak, who is an LBS grad and also a recent grad, so just graduated in 25. And Vishak works at, as a product marketing manager. Maybe you can explain what that is at Meta. What does that mean? Actually, do you know what a product marketing manager is?
• 10:14
  Speaker B: I assume they're in charge of the marketing for a particular product.
• 10:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's got to be. He doesn't say here which one. But anyway, he's 30. He's originally from Bengaluru, India. He went and studied at a university called VTU there where he studied computer science. And before business school he'd done a number of different things, but he'd worked a little bit in consulting at Accenture. He'd actually founded a foundation and he'd also had some involvement in social impact. So he had kind of a mix of experiences before business school. And now again he's been working as a product marketing manager at Meta. And we asked him a number of questions, but one of the ones that jumped out with me was his response to why LBs? And so here's what he said and I thought this was really telling. He said London Business School stood out because of its global DNA. I spoke to more than 10lbs alumni before applying and what consistently came through was how internationally fluid the experience is. LBS does not prepare you for one market or one role. It prepares you to operate anywhere. The London location mattered a lot. Being in the center of global finance, consulting, tech and policy created opportunities that simply would not exist elsewhere. I could attend class in the morning, a startup meeting in the afternoon and a global leadership talk in the evening. Finally, LBS valued my non linear background. I did come from a non, from a traditional, I did not come, sorry, from a traditional feeder school or a conventional path. But LBS appreciated my mix of consulting, tech and social impact and that gave me confidence that, that I would belong. So pretty interesting thoughts about LBs. And I feel like, I mean, you've done some, you know, work with LBs, teaching in their executive education, right, But I, you know, it is a very international place.
• 11:59
  Speaker B: No, absolutely. And I think they talk really eloquently about that, about that experience, which is really good to hear because obvious, LBS pitches itself as being international, but to hear it directly from a, from a student and I, I think that's really, really good.
• 12:19
  Speaker A: Yeah. And the only other thing that Vishak had to say was we asked him also just was any advice that he would have liked to have had while he was pursuing the mba. And he says, and I guess maybe this fits a little bit with what Jonathan said. He says, do not try to optimize everything. Pick a few things that genuinely matter to you and go deep.
• 12:37
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 12:37
  Speaker A: Careers are built through focus, not through constant comparison. So I guess this comes back to something we talked about on the last show. This like, dilemma between like, do you sort of try a little bit of everything? Do you go deep? Do you, you know, push your comfort zone? Like it's, it's a really interesting thing because there's so much on offer in these programs.
• 12:54
  Speaker B: Yeah. And getting the balance right is always going to be tricky.
• 12:58
  Speaker A: Yeah, agreed. But anyway, so that's. That continues. I know I talked to Lauren the other day on our team who's our editor in chief and she said she's got many, many more of these real humans coming down the pipeline. I love reading and what I read on the show here is just like sort of the tip of the iceberg because these are fairly long pieces where candidates are, you know, sorry, alumni are, you know, responding to. I think we give them all at least 10 questions or more and they share a lot of insights into the recruiting process and stuff. So very good stuff to read if you're over on the website.
• 13:27
  Speaker B: Very good.
• 13:28
  Speaker A: All right, so if you want to reach out to Alex and I as always write to infoearadmit.com, use the subject line wiretaps. But otherwise, Alex, you picked an all Decision Wire wiretaps episode for this week. So I guess we should probably dive in.
• 13:41
  Speaker B: That's kick home.
• 13:42
  Speaker A: Alright, so this is wiretaps candidate number one. So our first candidate this week comes from a decision Wire post as I said. And this person applied to a bunch of schools. Duke, Emory, Indiana, Notre Dame, UC Irvine, ucla, Anderson. And they ended up getting quite a number of offers. They got into Emory with $25,000. They got into Indiana Kelly with 30,000. Notre Dame gave them $68,000. Mirage gave them 60K. And then there's actually some other schools that aren't showing in the entry but they revealed in the notes they had some other offers so I'm going to share those as well. They were also admitted to Owen UNC and UVA Darden, all at sticker price. So without any scholarship. In case you're curious, this candidate had a 309 on the GRE and the 3.0 GPA. They're located in California and they would love to work in consulting. They say that MBB would be ideal, although they're worried that their GRE score would make them not competitive. They also are okay with they say tier 2 and healthcare specific consulting firms and then they do say that they want to land on the west coast. Ideally of course they said they'd be wouldn't be flexible if it increases the odds of getting into consulting. So there's a lot to unpack here Alex, but I'll let you take a stab at it.
• 15:08
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I, I think there are three schools to, to, to really examine for this, for this candidate, the, the best school for their goals, I would imagine, is Darden. I mean, it's renowned for consulting and it's in the higher tier, etc. Etc. So I, I think if they can make Darden work, it's, it's going to be quite compelling. I would look at how active Darden's alumni network is in California, since that's part of their goal and, and to see evidence that it is active and so forth. They're currently, I believe they're currently in California.
• 15:53
  Speaker A: Correct.
• 15:54
  Speaker B: So they might already have a network in California that they can help dive back into, which makes things a little bit easier versus someone that's going to California for the first time is the point I'd like to make. So some of this conversation does depend on how that current network is in that region. So Darden would be my number one pick here. Mirage is in the region. It would be in one of the lower tiers relative to other programs that they got admitted to, no doubt. But, but clearly their alumni network would be heavily concentrated in. In California. Right. So I would, I would look at Mirage's again, it's sort of alumni base, it's pipeline into consulting to see if Mirage offers a viable option relative to what they can get from Darden. The third option I might explore is Notre Dame Mendoza, simply because they're offering quite a decent scholarship similar to Mirage, I think, slightly higher profile program. So I would look at what, what again, their pipeline into California, their consulting pipeline, and see how that matches what Mir and Darden can offer. But those would be the three that sort of stand out to me in what I think is quite a good set of offers for this candidate.
• 17:36
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, when you look at the numbers, you say, wow, they actually did fairly well considering GRE is below average for almost all these programs. I mean, maybe not some of the back end of the list programs, but this is a 309 is definitely below the average at say, Darden, and a 3.0 GPA would be as well. So. Yeah, so they have some good offers, considering the numbers. I'm kind of with you. I mean, I think Darden's obviously the highest ranked school that they were accepted to. Very good at consulting. So it sort of ticks a number of the boxes. And I would imagine they probably have. It's such a large and renowned institution that they probably have a decent alumni club out west. Right. An alumni presence. So it probably is if they can make it work. You know, another one that did jump out at me that you didn't mention would be Emory. I mean, Emory is not giving them as much money as Notre Dame. They're only giving them 25,000. But Emory is a very good school when it comes to consulting placements. But again, it's on the East Coast. And so we run into that same issue of, well, what's the network like out West? If they're really hoping to make it out West. So, yeah, it's really challenging, but I think, yeah, if they can swing it, Darden seems like the right choice here. And as to their comment about not getting into MBB because of the gre, I don't believe that the consulting firms require that you report a test score. In fact, I think you're only sort of using the test score if you have a great score that you want to share. And if they really are set on mbb, what they could do is once they send in their check to go to Darden, they could buckle down and spend the spring and summer beefing up their skills and get an amazing score in the GRE that they then have and that they could share with consulting firms if they felt like it. So I wouldn't worry about that aspect of it. But in any event, so probably enough said on this candidate. I want to congratulate them on getting into so many programs and, yeah, we'll see what they decide. But it's an interesting set of dilemmas because they have so many sort of competing factors here.
• 19:32
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Lots of great options.
• 19:33
  Speaker A: Yeah. All right, let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two. So our second candidate this week again is a decision dilemma from Decision Decision Wire. And this person applied to Columbia, Cornell and Georgia Tech Scheller. So relatively narrow band of schools that they considered. They ended up getting into Cornell with a scholarship that's $40,000. And they also got into Georgia Tech Scheller with $55,000 offered to them. They had a GMAT score of 675 located in New Jersey. And they note to us that they are still, still deciding between Cornell and Georgia Tech. They point out that Cornell would be about $100,000 more expensive over the two years, and that's due to the fact that tuition at Georgia Tech is quite a bit lower and the cost of living would be lower. And obviously there's a gap in the scholarship, too. They say they have five years of experience in tech consulting and they're open to product management consulting or tech. They also also mentioned that they are worried that if they pick Georgia Tech, it might lock them into being tech focused while Cornell keeps their options open. They also say they'd prefer to be in the Northeast after graduation, so they're looking for our advice and suggestions. So what do you think of this one?
• 20:53
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think, quite honestly, if they can make Johnson work, then that should be their choice. They want to be in the Northeast, so they're going to get more opportunity for that placement, and they don't want to be pigeonholed into Tech. And again, Johnson probably is going to help them with that, you know, in terms of a broader base of career opportunities coming out of Johnson, and Johnson's in a tier 2 or 3 above Georgia Tech. So for all those reasons, I would think that the opportunities that Johnson provides is going to merit the cost differential. I mean, it does bring up this point that, again, the sticker price of some of these programs is very high. And looking at the different sticker prices here is quite interesting because the scholarship differential is certainly not 100k. Right. So it's obviously looking at the actual cost of the program, cost of living in the two different places. But I think they're leaning towards Johnson and they're looking for affirmation in that choice. And I would suggest that if they can make it work, Johnson would be the choice.
• 22:13
  Speaker A: Yeah, I can't disagree. I mean, I think that Cornell is, most people would argue, a top 16 program. Georgia Tech is more top 25. So there is that ranking difference. But you also get into the fact that for me, this Northeast focus really takes charge here, because not only is Cornel the Northeast with a very large network across the big cities, whether it's Boston or New York City, et cetera, in that region, but the other thing is that Cornell being an Ivy League school means that as an Ivy League graduate, you have access to all these Ivy events that happen in these cities. So there's a bigger, even a larger network than you might ordinarily expect, because you tap into some of the networks of the Princetons and the Yales, et cetera. So there is that aspect that I think cannot be ignored. And I would agree with you that if they can swing it, even though it's going to cost more, they probably should take the offer and head off to Ithaca. Yeah, yeah. So, anyway, this is. Yeah, these are really interesting and I love debating them, so we'll see what they do. But you might be right. Maybe they were looking for affirmation, so we've given it and they can move on. Anyway, I want to thank them for sharing their dilemma. Let's move on, though, and talk about Wiretaps Candidate number three. So our final candidate for this week applied to just two schools. Those schools were Duke and ESE in Barcelona. And they were admitted at both programs. They ended up getting a scholarship at Duke of $75,000. They were also given a smaller but pretty good scholarship at ESA of 30,000 Euros. So scholarships at both. GMAT score was a 655. This candidate is from Latin America and they talk about how, you know, the. They talk about a number of things. So number one, they talk about Duke costing more on paper because of stuff like health care and things that they would need. But they also point out that the US market offers $150,000 plus salaries which allow for quick repayment of loans. They, you know, they definitely know that ESA is cheaper, but they point out there will be few fewer higher pay, fewer high paying jobs to repay a loan quickly. And they also mentioned that they think a lot of those high paying jobs that are out there for ESA are going to be in the Middle east or Asia. So they're, you know, they're asking for our advice. They do mention that they want to work for like three or four years after business school, probably in, you know, whatever market that program sends them into. You know, with Duke it probably be America. With the essay, it could be in the Middle east or Europe or somewhere else. And they say that they ultimately though will return to Latin America. So they're wondering if we have any advice. And they also asked if we have, if they have a chance to maybe negotiate their offer to get a better scholarship or something.
• 25:09
  Speaker B: Yeah, I'm not sure about that final question in terms of negotiation because 75 at Fuqua already sounds better than the offer at ESC. So unless they're trying to increase the ESE offer, that might not work. But anyway, there's some interesting points here in terms of what should drive this decision. So they want to work 3 years post MBA before they return to Latin America. So that would. There's two things I would examine there. The strength of the alumni network in my home country for both Fuqua and for esa, because in the long run I'm returning to my home country or region as it were. So I would look at the alumni clubs and alumni networks in my region as one decision point or one factor to affect my decision. The bigger factor might be that three year period. Would I want to spend that three years? Where do I want to spend that three years, do I want to spend it in North America or in the us? Then the answer is Fuqua, do I want to spend it in other regions of the world, then ESA is certainly becomes much more viable as an option. So I would think long and hard about that. The accessibility of staying in Europe. I think we've talked about this before. You seem to know more about this than me, Graham, in terms of do they get that practical training option on their visa and so forth, so making sure that that is truly accessible to them and so forth. And then the third point is do they want to go to, you know, Europe or do they want to go to the US for that two year period? Do they want a European experience? Do they want an American experience as they, as they sort of, you know, go into their MBA program. So you know, comparing Raleigh, Durham, I guess that's where Fuqua is.
• 27:27
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 27:27
  Speaker B: And the assay is probably in Barcelona
• 27:30
  Speaker A: or something like that. Beautiful setting.
• 27:32
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So I mean, and, and there's probably, you know, more sort of, you know, Spanish speaking and. Yes, et cetera, et cetera. Right. So. So perhaps they'll feel a bit more at home there. And Barcelona is beautiful. So. But you know, at the end of the day that's going to factor too. So three broad considerations to make the final decision. They want healthcare. I know that Fuqua is really strong in health care. I've got to weigh a little bit toward Fuqua, Graham.
• 28:02
  Speaker A: Ultimately, yeah, it's tricky. I mean, I think so. You know, ESA is arguably one of the best schools in Europe alongside, you know, the likes of LBs and INSEAD. But as I as you were hinting at, you know, the ability to stay in Europe after business school as an international is a little bit trickier. It depends on the country. Obviously the UK gives you 18 months automatic where you don't even need a job. You can stay and hang out, look for a job. If you get a job, you can work. Europe is a little bit more tricky. You need to apply for a sort of special visa that allows you to be kind of job hunting and then obviously you need to get an employer to kind of sponsor you. So it is more complicated. And if they're looking to kind of make big bucks quick, obviously going to Duke, stay in the us, work three, four years and then head back to Latin America from a financial standpoint could make a lot of sense even though it may cost them more to go to Duke because they're going to have to pay for things. But there is a nice scholarship there with the 75,000. So yeah, it's tricky because Duke is arguably what. But certainly top 16, some might argue even closer to top 10 kind of MBA program. And how does that. This is one of those classic things. How do you match sort of, oh, top school in Europe with a top 10 school in America? How does that. And really, it depends on where they want to be. And so your initial advice of looking carefully at the market that they ultimately want to work in, wherever they're from in Latin America, what is that market like in terms of its alumni presence from these two schools? And this is where I honestly don't. It's hard for me to pick a winner here because ESE has a strong network in Latin America because of the Spanish speaking sort of history. And even though obviously Essay's program's in English, but there's a connection, obviously Spain has great ties to Latin America. So yeah, that's the trick here. And I think I'm leaning kind of Fuqua, given what they've said and what they want to do. But it's not an obvious choice and I would encourage them, as you say, to do due diligence. I also agree with you. I don't see how they're going to get more scholarship doll, unless they go to ESA and say, I really want to come here and I will come here, but you need to match the money from Fuqua. But I don't know that ESA will do that and I don't know that, you know, they'd have to be prepared to actually go to ESA if they get a yes on that. So yeah, it's tricky. I don't see them being in a great negotiating position.
• 30:21
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. But again, a great dilemma.
• 30:24
  Speaker A: Yes. So obviously to be able to have these dilemmas is already a pretty privileged spot. So obviously congratulations to them for getting into these programs, both with money. I wish them the best of luck as they try to solve and figure out where to go again. They should probably attend some of the welcome events and talk with alums, et cetera. But yeah, best of luck to them and thanks for sharing, Alex. Thanks to you obviously, for picking out three decision wire posts for this week. A lot of fun to debate these and yeah, we'll do it all next week if you're around.
• 30:54
  Speaker B: Yeah, very good. Stay safe everyone. Take care.
• 31:04
  Speaker A: Sam.