Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 496: Second MBA, from India. Bangladeshi banker. Booth and Fuqua.

Transcript

MBA Wire Taps 496: Second MBA, from India. Bangladeshi banker. Booth and Fuqua. · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Hi, my name is Amber Walsh. I'm a senior Associate director at the Yale School of Management. And welcome to the Clear Admit Podcast. Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm Graham Richmond and this is your Wiretaps for Monday, June 15, 2026. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. How are things going, Alex?
• 0:37
  Speaker B: Very good, thank you, Graham.
• 0:39
  Speaker A: So this week we've got some very interesting AI startup news out of Johns Hopkins Carry. Some latest deadlines and essay topics have been posted as well, which we'll get to. And then Fridays from the Frontline adventure with LBS students in Austin, Texas, and of course, three candidates to discuss. But first up, what's going on with you, Alex? Any, any news and notes from the front line in terms of Livewire and stuff?
• 1:03
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, we're still going to again see some final decisions released. So this upcoming week, Carol Carlson and Imperial Business School is scheduled to release decisions from their fourth and fifth round. So it's those schools that have those extra rounds that are still releasing decisions. We also have deferred admissions decision still to come out the back end of June. So there's a bit of that activity. And yeah, I would anticipate we'll still see some more activity on Waitlist Shifting, but we are definitely in summer mode.
• 1:38
  Speaker A: Yeah, certainly. Yeah. And I know, so we're recording this obviously last week because this show always airs on Mondays. But I'm recording I'm in Philadelphia for the GMAC conference and also for a there's a big top business schools present event that I'm moderating at Wharton. But anyway, this is always that time of year where kind of the page turns. Although I know schools are still sort of putting some finishing touches on the class and we see that in wait list movement on Livewire a little bit. But yeah, so it's definitely the beginning of kind of the new season. So it's kind of an exciting time. And I'm actually, I love the GMAC conference. It's always a great chance to catch up with dozens and dozens of people that I know in the industry from all the leading business schools. So it should be a lot of fun.
• 2:22
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I have fond memories of GMAT conferences back in the old, old days. So, yeah, you should have a good time, I reckon.
• 2:31
  Speaker A: Yeah, should be good. And I'm leading a workshop for schools to attend. And yeah, Clear Admit does our annual party, so it should be a lot of fun. Speaking of turning the page, though, and kind of the new season, we've got our Essay series of virtual events coming up in July. It's our most popular virtual event series. Every year thousands of candidates typically sign up for this thing. And so we've got four events in a row, July 21, 22, 28 and 29. And essentially I think there are 20 some schools taking part at this point. We've got Berkeley, Chicago. I'm just cherry picking some names here. Insead, Wharton, Kellogg, Columbia, LBs, Yale, MI. I mean the list goes on and on. So there are a lot of schools taking part. And what we do in these workshops, as I've kind of mentioned before, is we just ask admissions directors questions about their essay topics. And it's just designed for those who are applying to business school to really get some concrete advice on like how to approach these questions, what schools are looking for in the answers, and so on. So should be fun. You can sign up@clearadmit.com events. Alex, I know you're probably waiting with bated breath to get the transcripts to feed them into the Ask Clear Admit bot so that that bot can be really informative going forward. But yeah, a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to those.
• 3:48
  Speaker B: Yeah, and like you say, they're our most popular events and yeah, they're great. It creates great transcripts for us to further train the bot to make sure it's current and so on and so forth. So yeah, great summer activity.
• 4:01
  Speaker A: Yeah, should be fun. In terms of news and notes, we've got this article that went up on the site that is called from beds insight to AI enabled patient safety. How two full time MBA students at Johns Hopkins Cary are building CareQ, which is a startup and basically, so far as I understand, so these two students in the MBA program have figured out that by combining thermal imaging and AI they can sort of somehow detect patient risk faster if someone's in the hospital and something starts to go wrong. So you know, you can read the article for all the details, but it's a really interesting story and we know Johns Hopkins is kind of famous for that intersection between business and healthcare. So it's very on brand that there would be a couple of students starting a kind of health tech company. But it's an interesting read.
• 4:53
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, and being an entrepreneur is obviously one of the big outcomes of going to top business schools and being able to sort of flesh that out during your time in these programs is a really good opportunity, I would say. Yeah, very good.
• 5:11
  Speaker A: Yeah, totally so. And then the other thing we had on the site is that I wanted to share is we had this Fridays from the front line where a student from London Business School, well, actually a whole batch of students went to Austin, Texas and one of the students did like a journal entry for the site where he kind of described his experience and his name is Henrik and he is from Savanger, Norway. I've never been there, but that's where he's from. And he. So he, he went to the Norwegian School Economics for undergrad and you know, obviously is at LBS now and had done strategy consulting before LBS in a small shop or what sounds like a small shop in, in Oslo. And he just says, I have a couple of quotes here. He just said, when I signed up for LBs's global experience course in Austin, I. I was looking for inspiration. The theme for the week was breakthrough technology. And Austin has built a reputation as one of the most exciting tech hubs in the United States. I wanted to see what that actually looks like up close. What I didn't expect was that the most interesting part of the week wouldn't be the technology itself, but the system that has been built around it. Austin is full of impressive companies, but the strongest impressions from the week or about how the ecosystem behind these companies is being built deliberately by the university investors, incubators, public institutions and the people who choose to move there and stay. So anyway, that's obviously the article goes on from there and he gives lots of detail about what it was like, but I thought that was an interesting statement and I do, you know, he's really touching on something which is it's not just. You don't just need people with kind of interesting ideas or new technology. There is a whole ecosystem to make this stuff work.
• 6:54
  Speaker B: No, absolutely. I'm going to put you on the spot now, Graham.
• 6:56
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 6:58
  Speaker B: Which state. Which state in the United States hosts the most Fortune 500 companies?
• 7:05
  Speaker A: I'm going to say Texas. Yes, but that's probably, that's. I would guarantee. If we asked that question like 10 years ago, would it have been Delaware or California?
• 7:15
  Speaker B: Like, I don't know, one year ago it would have been California.
• 7:18
  Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. So the tide is sort of shifting.
• 7:21
  Speaker B: The center of gravity is starting to shift. And it, and it really, you know, makes the case for, for business schools in Texas. This is really a good trend for them. Right. So. So, you know, it plays really well for McCombs. It plays really well for, you know, Rice, Jones, et cetera, et cetera. Now, in terms of value, California still far outweighs Texas in terms of, you know, dollars created and etc. Etc. But there's no doubt that Texas is growing fast and currently now has just eclipsed California in the number of Fortune 500 companies. So, you know, if I was an ADCOM in Texas, I'd be pretty happy about that.
• 8:07
  Speaker A: And I know we had. I did a couple of shows. I think there was one with, oh, gosh, the guy who runs the real estate center over at smu, Cox and Cox.
• 8:18
  Speaker B: The other one really benefits from this. Yeah.
• 8:22
  Speaker A: So anyway, it's been. Yeah. And I had the dean from SMU on the show, I want to say, I don't know, three months ago or so. And he too was like, really? I mean, obviously, as an east coast person who's had limited exposure to Texas, I didn't really have a sense of things. And now hearing this over and over again from people, you start to realize that there has been a big shift. So anyway, yeah, lots of opportunity in Texas. The only other thing I wanted to mention before we talk about candidates is that we started this column up that I guess starts up every year around this time that's called the Weekly Refresh. And in that column, Lauren, on our team meticulously assembles news of schools that have published their essay topics, our kind of analysis of those essay topics, and then also schools that have just rolled out their deadlines. So typically, in case you're a novice to this whole process, which I think a lot of people are who are just starting, schools will initially say, here are admissions deadlines. And then they might then a few weeks later say, oh, here are essay topics. And our applications opening on July 1st or whatever. And we typically will then take those essay topics and application materials and just sort of analyze to let our audience know, like, why do we think the school's asking these questions, et cetera. So all that stuff goes up on the site and we have this nice weekly column that just sort of summarizes what's happened. So I guess we published an essay topic analysis on London Business School in the past week because their essays are out. And then schools that have announced their deadlines included over the last week or so. Berkeley, Cambridge, Columbia, Duke, the Indian School of Business, ucla, Anderson, Wharton, and U, Washington, Foster. So lots of stuff starting to happen on the deadlines and kind of essay topics front.
• 9:59
  Speaker B: Yeah, very good. Getting ready for next season again.
• 10:02
  Speaker A: Yeah, totally. All right, so if you want to write to Alex and I, you can write to infoeardmit.com use the subject line Wiretaps. Otherwise, Alex, I guess we can dive right into the candidates you've picked.
• 10:12
  Speaker B: Let's Kick on.
• 10:13
  Speaker A: All right, so this is is WireTaps Candidate number one. Our first candidate this week comes from an apply wire entry. And this person has eight schools on the target list. The schools include Chicago, Booth, Dartmouth, Tuck, Harvard Business School, Michigan, mit, Kellogg, Stern and Stanford. And they shared with us that they're hoping to start school in the fall of 27 and that they've been working with the top five insurance companies in India as part of a general management rotational program as a product manager. They also indicated that they already have an MBA from India and they went to a top 10 institute and they ended up with a 92nd percentile in the cap exam. So I presume that's a pretty good score. They're interested in using an American MBA to pivot into finance, investment banking specifically. And they mentioned a number of companies. They also I think have maybe a longer term site set on venture capital, private equity. So kind of looking to upgrade in terms of where they are in the finance universe. They had an 8.7 undergraduate GPA, six years of professional experience located in India and wants to land in the States post mba. And they shared in the notes that they were top five in the their class when they earned the mba. They also mentioned that they were top five in their class in engineering as an undergrad. And you know, they've been working with an engineering team at work in a product management role leading it sounds like 130 some members. So they have a lot of, you know, a lot of like leadership experience. They want to shift from product management to investment banking or private equity. So yeah, so they're not really, even though they're involved in insurance companies, it sounds like their work is very much engineering and not finance really. So they're really looking to shift from product management to the finance domain. Alex, you asked them if they had a test and I don't see one here. But tell me what you think of this candidate otherwise.
• 12:17
  Speaker B: Yeah, a couple of things they need to do, right. Firstly, make sure they get do the GMAT or the gre. Let's big hat tip to GMAC since you're going to be with them this week, well before this podcast is aired. So we would encourage them to take the GMAT because that is the standard and do very, very well. Right. So their top 5% of their class as an engineer, the top 5% of their class in an MBA already. So we would expect to see a really high GMAT score to complement their academic work. And if they really want to take the test prep, well, take the test and then if they need to retake the test, if they don't get a score above the median of the schools they're targeting is what I would suggest for them. They have an mba, so they've got to overcome this notion of why a second mba. And there are lots of valid reasons for why a second mba, but it's definitely something they need to hit head on. Right. So, you know, obviously with several years of experience now, their trajectory and their ambition, everything's altered and different and a good, more global MBA is obviously going to open up lots more opportunity for them. It looks like they want to transition onto the finance side more. So they want to get into investment banking or private equity. I would suggest them, they focus on investment banking. That could be potentially a doorway into private equity. But I would start with investment banking as the short term goal and go all in on that rather than one or the other. And, you know, one would assume that they can show that they've done good work so they can check off the tick box of growth and impact and so forth at work, but they've got to target the first round, they've got to get a really strong test score to complement their academics and they've got to justify why they decided that a second MEA is the next best step for them to continue forward and shift over from the engineering side, if that's where they're at, to the front office investment banking side.
• 14:31
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's funny, this is a tricky one in the sense that on the one hand you could say already has an MBA and is looking to make a career jump. That is a pretty substantial leap. They want to change, arguably function, industry and geography. They could say industry maybe is a stretch because it sounds like their engineering or product management work is related to the insurance sector. So you could say that's kind of finance, but it's a big leap either way. And so I would want to see a really big test score like you say. I think many of the folks who have an MBA in India that fall into the category that this candidate might fall into often do so like direct from undergrad. And so I think the best argument they're going to be able to make is one of, you know, I learned quite a bit in my mba. I did really well, but I hadn't worked. And now that I've been working, I really see the need to go back into the classroom and study this stuff because I think there is a big difference. When you've been out in the workforce, coming back into the class so they're going to have to make that argument in order to be convincing because it could be pretty easy for someone to sort of dismiss them if it's kind of like this person already has an mba, so they just need to be compelling in making that argument. And I also think they're going to need to be compelling in terms of explaining why an investment bank, I mean, they're not going to answer that directly, but I'd want to read that file and be thinking that an investment bank would want this person. And that would probably come down to the numbers. Like, I just, you know, they have great grades, they've always been at the top of their class. I'd want to see a stellar test score to kind of just shore all that up and know that this person can make that transition.
• 16:07
  Speaker B: Yeah, I'm convinced they can do all that, too.
• 16:10
  Speaker A: Yeah, same.
• 16:10
  Speaker B: I mean, you know, if you finish top 5% of your class in both types of classes, 8.71 GPA. I've got to believe this is a super smart person.
• 16:20
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 16:21
  Speaker B: And they can show that, but they've got to show that.
• 16:24
  Speaker A: Yeah. And just as a reminder, when we look at candidates from India who have an undergraduate degree there, it's Rare to see an 8 as the first digit in that GPA. Out of 10, it's almost always 6, 7, you know, somewhere in there. So. So this person obviously did well in any event. Yeah. And the only thing I don't know is, and I don't think they said much about it, so I don't know what their outside activities or interests are. I'm hoping that they have some other things they do that, you know, make them interesting. It does seem like they did something. Yeah. I don't know. I thought I read somewhere that they do something else, but I'm not finding it now as I frantically read through their profile. But in any event, it'd be good to know, are there other things? What are they bringing into the program as well?
• 17:03
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
• 17:05
  Speaker A: I want to thank them so much for sharing their profile, encourage listeners. Obviously, this is an anonymous thing, so please, if you're listening and you haven't yet posted to Applyware, just do so. It's a great tool and we may feature on the show, you never know. But let's move on. Alex and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number Our second candidate this week is also looking to start business school in the fall of 27. This candidate just has three schools on the target list for now. Chicago Booth, Columbia Business School, and Wharton. They are working in commercial banking and they're looking to flip to investment banking. They mentioned JP Morgan, Lazard Freire and Morgan Stanley as potential targets for those post MBA roles. Their GMAT score is a 655. I looked it up and the old equivalent score would be like a 700 or a 710. Their GPA is a 3.2. I, I don't know where they earned that GPA but I think it might be in Bangladesh because that's where they're from. So I don't have a good census. Is that a converted gpa? We might not know but in any event that's the GPA they've listed. They've got a little more than four years of work experience and they would love to live and work in New York City after business school. They mentioned they're a Bangladeshi corporate banking professional working for a global bank managing a $660 million lending portfolio across power, infrastructure, manufacturing and commodity clients. They you know, obviously have a cfa, they're a CFA charter holder. And then they just said alongside banking I co founded a cross border advisory boutique connecting Chinese contractors and South Asian sponsors across healthcare infrastructure, steel, solar and EV distribution. And they mentioned that their long term goal after they do some banking is to build a South Asia focused infrastructure advisory and capital platform that mobilizes institutional and strategic capital into to essential sectors. So Alex, what do you make of this candidate?
• 19:11
  Speaker B: Yeah, I love the goals. Yeah and I actually like the experience leading to the goals. So this, this person appears, does appear to have some really interesting experience. Like you said, the managing of 660 million lending portfolio across power, infrastructure, manufacturing and commodity clients, working on a 286 million financing for a, you know, megawatt gas fired power plant, et cetera, et cetera. So it seems like their experience ties really nicely with their goals. Their goals are ambitious, their goals are impactful, etc. Etc. So I really do like all that. I would say that, you know, obviously if they get some good recommenders to back up their career to date, etc. That will be very good. They're aiming high. I like the schools that they're targeting right. In terms of executing on their goals. They're very sort of finance oriented, Booth and Columbia, Wharton and so forth. I'm just worried about this GMAT score Graham, because we don't know enough about the GPA and maybe ADCOM will be in a similar situation. They're going to lean a little bit more heavily on the test score as a real representation and it's probably not going to be at the median of the schools they're targeting. So you've got to imagine those schools also have candidates with higher test scores that have equivalently really interesting experience. So I would encourage them to consider retaking that test if they think there's some scope for improvement. Even if it's only 20 points, that's going to make a difference, I think for a candidate like this. Graham.
• 20:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's funny, when I saw this, that was the first thing I thought of because I wondered if the GPA 3, 2 could be just converted and so maybe it's better than it looks like. Maybe it's like that 8.7 that we heard from the first candidate. If they're, you know, they might have just converted it and sometimes that gets lost in translation. But yeah, 655 is not going to cut it, I don't think at Booth, Columbia and Wharton for a candidate, you know, from a potentially overrepresented part of the world. So, yeah, because I do. I love the goals, everything. You know, in some respects, this person's professional experience lines up better with their goals than our first candidate. Right. So. So yeah, I would love for them to go back and retake that test and boost that score to maybe 685 or, you know, whatever they can do to get into the ballpark of the programs that they're considering. Again, the test alone is not a make or break, but I just feel like if they want to put their best foot forward, they have got plenty of time between now and those first round deadlines. They should do it, take it again, no question.
• 21:52
  Speaker B: Yeah. And, you know, maybe they got to look at a couple of other programs slightly out of the M7 just to sort of complement the schools that they're targeting, especially if the test score is a little bit on edge. So, yeah, maybe a program like Johnson might be one to look at, but there are probably several other programs that they could also be looking at.
• 22:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, they mention investment banking, so you would think Johnson, maybe Stern. You know, there are a handful out there that could fit the bill, but yeah. So in any event, do they need
• 22:26
  Speaker B: to target the first round grain in Bangladesh?
• 22:29
  Speaker A: I think they kind of do because I think, you know, they're going to be lumped in with candidates from probably from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh. Like, I think it's obviously there are fewer Bangladeshis than there are Indians, but it's still a pretty big market. And so, yeah, I would apply in the first round, so retake the test and then as you point out in the comments, we just don't know about outside activities, really, so be good to have a better sense of that, too.
• 22:51
  Speaker B: Well, yeah, but they co founded this, the. The startup. Right. So, I mean, I think that's good. I mean, obviously this is very much aligned with their work, too.
• 23:00
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 23:01
  Speaker B: But they're obviously very busy and very, you know, doing really interesting things.
• 23:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, agreed. Yeah. So in any event, I'm sure there's some other stuff they do for fun that might be interesting, add some color. But, yeah, in any event, yeah, I think this is a potentially very strong candidate. I would agree with you 100%. You can't just apply to Booth, Columbia and Wharton. I mean, these are three M7 schools. Like, you got to cast a slightly wider net.
• 23:23
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 23:24
  Speaker A: And they probably should seek to boost that test score, so. All right, I want to thank them for sharing their profile. Let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number three. So our final candidate this week comes from a decision wire entry that you picked out. And this person applied to a number of schools. They applied to Carnegie Mellon, Chicago, Booth, Columbia, Duke, Kellogg, nyu Stern, unc, and UT Austin. And they ended up getting into a number of these schools. So they got into Carnegie Mellon, Booth, Duke with $100,000 scholarship, UNC, and UT Austin. So they got into about half of the schools they applied to, maybe even a bit more. And, you know, the only one giving them a scholarship, it seems, is duke, and it's $100,000 scholarship. They had a 3.48 undergraduate GPA. And they mentioned that they are from a healthcare background and that they're seeking to pivot to consulting. They're targeting mbb. And then, interestingly enough, they say, want to really develop my quant, which I presume means quantitative skills. So that's all they said, and they didn't even say which schools they were trying to decide between. So your comment to them, Alex, was, are you deciding between Booth, which is the highest ranked school that accepted you, and maybe Fuqua, because there's $100,000 scholarship, and it's also a pretty highly ranked school, but they didn't specify. But I think it's probably a safe assumption that they've sort of narrowed it down.
• 24:49
  Speaker B: But.
• 24:49
  Speaker A: Yeah. What do you make of this dilemma? I mean, it's an interesting one because they have this dueling kind of thing where they want MBB and they want to really work on their quantitative skills.
• 24:58
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, Booth, if they can make Booth work, that's the leader in, in this group of schools. Right. Booth and Fuqua. I mean, Booth is in the higher tier, but FUK was offering the 100 grand. But Fuqua is in a tier above all the others. Right. So it's definitely, to me, it's between those two. And Booth is renowned for its sort of quant. I'm not necessarily saying focus, but there's going to be a lot of coursework at Booth that's going to allow them to optimize for quant development. That has to be. And also with Booth, you have the luxury of really tailoring the program to your needs and so on and so forth. So, yeah, I mean, again, that 100 grand sort of covers the bridge between tiers. Right. It does certainly elevate Fuqua and make Fuqua a compelling choice too. So maybe there's some other things to look at in terms of, do they have any geographic preference in terms of post mba? Where are they targeting geographically? Which of the schools has the better, more active alumni network in those regions?
• 26:08
  Speaker A: Right.
• 26:08
  Speaker B: I think that's really important. And then there's the two year experience itself. What they're seeking out of that two year experience, are they better served? You know, in, In a. I think it's Raleigh, Durham. Right. In terms of Fuqua versus Chicago and. And so forth. So some of those factors would come into it too. But I got to think that Booth is the better option.
• 26:33
  Speaker A: Yeah, I, I tend to agree that these are. That it does come down to those two. And I think, you know, the money at Duke cannot be ignored. But. But yeah, it's it. I think they need to figure out where they want to be as well, as you pointed out. Like if they could know where they want to work geographically, that would help potentially or even I would go a layer further and say, you know, they mentioned they're in health care and they want to pivot to consulting. But I wonder, does the consulting that they end up doing, are they interested in kind of health care companies because they have that expertise? Because if that were the case, then suddenly Fuqua looks pretty good too, because they have a really active kind of healthcare community and alumni working in that space. So it's really, you know, this is what happens when you end up with two schools where, you know, arguably, like you said, because of the money, they're pretty neck and neck. You need to really get into the weeds and start to think about, okay, which of these schools. I mean, obviously both schools could send them to mbb. But what I'm thinking about is one step beyond that. Like, what's the industry focus they want to have and geographically, where do they want to be? So. So they need, as you say, to do their homework and figure this stuff out in terms of which school might better serve them. They're not going to go wrong either way. Right. I mean, it's just, you know, you can't exactly. Can't argue against either of these two, but, yeah, I understand. It's. It's kind of a tough call, and I think you alluded to this a little bit, but one's an urban, you know, setting for business school in a major city, you know, the third largest city in the United States, and one is more of a kind of, you know, college campus kind of environment in Duke. So, yeah, just a different vibe that they need to figure out what's. What works for them. So. Yeah. Interesting dilemma.
• 28:10
  Speaker B: Very good.
• 28:11
  Speaker A: All right. So, Alex, because we've done this so quickly, that means I get, you know, more time to go eat cheesesteaks while I'm here in Philadelphia. So I appreciate us having a speedy episode this week.
• 28:20
  Speaker B: And then, yeah, more time to go for runs in hot, humid weather, too.
• 28:25
  Speaker A: Yeah, I know. Yeah, it's been brutal. Yeah. But anyway, it's supposed to be nicer as the week goes on, so we'll see. I. I hope to have a full report on how everything went when we get there together next week and record again. But, yeah, thanks a lot, Alex, for picking out the candidates this week and for accommodating my schedule with us, time and stuff. So I'll talk to you next week.
• 28:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, very good. Stay safe, everyone. Take care.