Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 467: Round 1 admit, round 2 strategy. 655 GMAT, from Australia. Johnson vs Kenan Flagler.

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MBA Wire Taps 467: Round 1 admit, round 2 strategy. 655 GMAT, from Australia. Johnson vs Kenan Flagler. · 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, January 12, 2026. Looking for an MBA experience where you're truly seen, supported and inspired to grow at Vanderbilt Business. You'll discover a personalized learning 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. To learn more about the Vanderbilt MBA program and to claim your application fee waiver, visit Business Vanderbilt to. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. How are things this week, Alex?
• 1:08
  Speaker B: Very good, thank you, Graeme.
• 1:09
  Speaker A: So, on the show this week, we've got Yale employment figures for the class of 25. We did a bunch of interviews with current Texas McCombs and Alliance Manchester MBA students. We've got an admissions tip for anyone who's still kind of polishing up their essays, as well as, of course, a group of candidates to discuss that you've picked out, Alex. But first, give me the rundown what's been going on.
• 1:31
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, obviously last week was the big week for round two, application deadlines and so forth. 29 schools having those deadlines. But this upcoming week, we also have sloan, Imperial Stern, McCombs, Marshall Mirage, Warrington Marriott and Marilyn Smith having application deadlines. So. So there will still be folks that potentially are listening that are still tightening up their essays and getting ready to submit.
• 2:06
  Speaker A: Yeah, and best of luck to everyone. I know most people are, you know, probably have the heaviest lifting behind them because of all those, what was it, 29 deadlines last week. But there's still a few left, as you point out. So best of luck to everyone. I did want to make a plea, if anyone's listening who happened to be applied in kind of the first round and went through the interview process at top MBA programs, we could really use your first firsthand accounts of those interviews in our interview archive. And we actually run like a promotion that you can see on the website, but essentially you can share your interview report. Like, what was it? Like, what questions were you asked? How did you feel about it? And that goes into our archive. Super helpful resource for most people who are applying to business school. It's the largest resource of its kind on the Internet. And we give out, I think it's $10Amazon gift cards for every report that comes in. So head over to the site and submit reports. If you can remember what your interview was like round one, or if you're going to be interviewing around two, just keep that in mind because this is an archive that only works because it's sort of like people are constantly paying it forward. You know, they're going through the process and then they're leaving a report for the next group to come behind them. So. And Alex, I always mention this, but this was your brainchild and it's a real achievement for Clear Admit that we have this massive archive. It's been so helpful over the years.
• 3:23
  Speaker B: Yeah, it used to be a wiki when we first created it. It's a little bit different now. But I do wonder, Graham, and this may be a reason we've seen a few less reports coming in thus far, is folks are using AI tools like Ask Clear Admit for their interview prep without going to the interview archive directly. Now, obviously the Ask Clear Admit AI tool is trained on all those interview reports. So I just wonder if there's that sort of idea that people are less going directly to the source and now using AI. And maybe that's why we're seeing a little bit less of an uptick in reports coming in.
• 4:08
  Speaker A: Maybe.
• 4:08
  Speaker B: So it's super important for us to make sure that our tools, including the AI Ask Clear Admit, as well as the. The source, the interview archives, stays very current that we get these reports.
• 4:21
  Speaker A: Yeah. So, yeah. So obviously spread the word if you, you know, if you've interviewed and are willing to share your experience, we greatly appreciate that. And again, you can just do so@clearadmyth.com otherwise we do have some events coming up. I've been plugging these the last couple of weeks, but we have a really interesting webinar on January 28th at 10:00am Eastern, which is called does an MBA Still Open Doors for the Truth About Growth, Leadership and what Comes Next? So that's available on our website. You can sign up in advance, just go to clearadmit events. We also do have two deferred enrollment events coming down the pipe here in. When is that? February. So February 4th and 11th. Those are at New Niece. And we'll gather together with, you know, all these top schools, Wharton, Columbia, Stanford, et cetera, who have these deferred enrollment programs which are designed for college seniors or people currently in a master's that they entered immediately following undergrad who want to go off and get an mba, but after they've worked, obviously, but can sort of Lock in a seat in advance. So sign up for these events in advance. You have to, in order to get the link. So, yeah, we hope to see a lot of you coming out at those events. And Alex, speaking of events, we did publish on the site our January rundown of all the in person events that schools are organizing. And this is set up. The post itself that we put up is actually organized by school. So you can just, you know, check in on the schools that you're interested in and see what kind of opportunities you might have to meet admissions reps or current students or alumni. I'll give you one example. I was looking at this because we're doing Yale's kind of career stats today. I noticed Yale in this kind of person events list has this thing that's called the winter socials. And they offer these things in, you know, far flung markets, like, you know, in, in Bangladesh, in South Korea, Singapore, Milan, Italy, Boston, New York. So all over the globe they're offering these little socials and it's basically casual gatherings hosted by current Yale students who are, you know, on winter break. And, and so these things run into, I think, until like maybe the, I want to say even into this week and, and all the schools do this kind of stuff, but it' example of one type of event that you might be able to attend even in your own market where you could interact with students or alumni. So take, check out this article. It's a good rundown that we do every month.
• 6:44
  Speaker B: No? Very good. I assume it's not including admit events for admitted candidates, is that correct?
• 6:51
  Speaker A: Right. This is all for prospective candidates.
• 6:54
  Speaker B: Yeah, for prospective candidates. Yeah. Because obviously a lot of these schools will be hosting admit events for round one admits.
• 7:00
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 7:01
  Speaker B: In January because they're trying to obviously, you know, improve their yield, etc. Etc. So if you're an admitted candidate, just make sure you're signed up for those school events too.
• 7:14
  Speaker A: Yeah, so absolutely check that out. The other thing, Alex, is we had one more admissions tip this week about essay polishing. So if you're still working on those MIT or, you know, stern essays, check out this post. It actually gets into sort of three key tips. One is keep things professional. Emphasize action is the second one. And the third is avoid repetition across the file. And then it includes this post has five videos that you and I have recorded about different aspects of kind of writing essays. So good stuff to tap into as you're finalizing. And Alex, I know you mentioned there's one other thing people could do with their essays as they do a kind of final run through.
• 7:54
  Speaker B: Yeah, just use Ask Clear Admit, upload your draft essays and ask for feedback and so on and so forth. We're seeing quite a lot of that activity at this point. It's all anonymous, so if you are using it, don't worry, we're not tracking that, etc. But I think this is a really good use case for the bot that we've developed, whether it's getting feedback on your MBA resume, individual essays, your whole package, and so on and so forth.
• 8:24
  Speaker A: Yeah. So read the admissions tip on the site and then use Ask Clear Admit. You should be able to wrap your stuff up and make sure that you know everything is just in really good shape before you hit submit on the files. We did do a couple of real Humans pieces where we caught up with students at two business schools. I'll start with Texas McCombs down in Austin. We caught up with Mark. His actual full name is Mark Appel and I say his last name because he was a baseball player. He's in the class of 27 now. He's 34 years old, comes from Houston. Originally had attended Stanford as an undergrad where he studied management science and engineering and before business school he was a pitcher playing professional baseball. He played for both the Philadelphia Phillies and the Houston astros for about 11 years, working his way through the minor league systems. He was a very highly touted prospect at one point. If memory serves, things didn't really pan out due to a bunch of injuries. But we asked Mark, why did you choose Texas McCombs? And he gave a pretty interesting response. He said McCombs was the best choice for me for several reasons. From my first tour with second year students at that time to now being over halfway through my first semester, I could sense a great commitment to community and collaboration, both values that I hold very high. Every student, professor and member of the administrative team has offered their help, support and encouragement as I'm making a large career pivot. A rising tide lifts all boats and the tide is rising fast at McCombs. Also, I would be lying if my parents didn't have some influence in this decision. They are both Longhorn alumni having met during their undergraduate years in the 80s. So you could say that I grew up bleeding burnt orange, so it's only fitting that I eventually found myself studying at Texas. So That's Mark, current first year student over at McCombs. Pretty interesting stuff, especially for me as a baseball fan.
• 10:22
  Speaker B: I was going to say you're right into that, aren't you Graham?
• 10:25
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, and I do remember him coming. He was originally with the Astros and then ended up with the Phillies. But we also caught up with students over at University of Manchester, the Alliance Manchester Business School. And we talked with. I hope I pronounced this right. Natnael, who is a class of 27 student, 29 years old, originally from Adidas Ababa in Ethiopia and studied, what is it? I guess mechanical engineering, it looks like. Yeah. And then worked pre MBA in supply chain planning over at Pepsi for four years. And I thought this was interesting. We asked Nathaniel, like, what is something that you would absolutely do again as part of your application process? And he said, one thing I would absolutely do again is meticulously choose the right recommenders. Not just those with impressive titles, but those who had direct, recent and specific insight into my performance. Performance. This strategy turns the recommendation into a powerful third party narrative that provides concrete evidence for every claim I make, transforming my application from good to undeniable. So I thought this was interesting, Alex, just because it's rare that candidates talk about the recommendations when we ask them this question. And I think not Nail has a pretty interesting point here and one that we've made, but I think is really well said here.
• 11:52
  Speaker B: Yeah, I like that. From good to undeniable. Yeah, that's quite clever. Right, but obviously they're at Manchester so they must be clever. But yeah, no, my point, yeah, I think you're exactly right. This is great advice. That is standard advice for selecting recommenders. It's in our admissions tip for selecting recommenders. Don't be distracted by just trying to find the most famous person that you can or the most accomplished person that you can in your organization. Find the folks that really understand your work product from a more supervisory capacity and they will really help support your overall narrative if you do this correctly. So yeah, kudos. Great bit of advice.
• 12:37
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I love the piece about providing concrete evidence for every claim I make. So that's what the RECs can do. They can really support your narrative, especially if they know what you're talking about in your file, which we always advocate that you should make sure your recommenders know a lot about what you're saying, even let them read your kind of career goal statement and all that stuff. So in any event, really good stuff to catch up. Obviously, at both McCombs and Manchester, I believe we caught up with five or six students and these are just a couple of those students. So go read those pieces if you're interested in either of those programs. I had a lot of fun going through and Picking some folks out. We also, as I mentioned, at the top of the show, we finally got employment report from Yale SOM for the class of 25. These are all, I think the lion's share of these are now out in the field from all the top schools. So what I'll do, Alex, is I'll do what we always do. I'll give you the numbers for this year and last and highlight any differences and be curious to get your take. So with Yale, the class was 336 students, and that's three students smaller than last year. It was 339 last year. The percent seeking employment, 81.5%. That's down a little bit 1.7% from last year. In terms of offers received, 82.1% of those seeking employment reported having an offer within three months of graduation. That's down 2.7% from last year. And 79.9% had reported accepting an offer within three months of graduation. And that's also down 1.3% from last year. The compensation moved in the other direction. It's now up to $175,000 as a median base salary. That's up $15,000 from $160,000 in the prior year. Median signing bonus is unchanged at $30,000. The industry placement, we'll start with consulting, 36.7%. That's actually up 4.8% over last year. Finance, 28.9%. That's up 2.7%. Tech jobs, 8.3%, down 1.3%. Healthcare, 5%. That's down a percent as well. Retail, 4.6, essentially unchanged. So those were the main areas that Yale SOM grads were getting jobs in. In terms of the geography of it all, 53.3% of these Yale grads seeking employment landed in the northeast. That's up 10.6% from last year. 16.1% went out to the West Coast. That's down 4.2%. 4.8% landed in the Mid Atlantic. That number was 11.3% last year. So that's off over 6% as well. 6.2% went to the Midwest, 6.2 to the Southwest, and 5.7 to the South. Those numbers are not terribly different, although the south was lower. It was more like 2% last year. But the others were pretty steady, and about 8% took jobs overseas, it seems. If I'm just extrapolating from adding these up and figuring out what the difference is. So, Alex, what do you make of these figures from Yale som?
• 15:58
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, the numbers sound very reasonable, much in line with other top programs that we've covered. The starting, the mean salary of 175 is very, very good. It puts them quite close to the M7 group, which seems to be fluctuating between 175 in the, in the 180s. But Yale very close behind now with that bump in median salary. So that's very good. The drop off in tech aligns or correlates with the drop off in folks going to the West Coast, I imagine. But, yeah, other than that, these numbers look very, very decent, Graham, just as we've seen from other programs, I think.
• 16:42
  Speaker A: One thing I want to highlight, Yeah, I mean, again, overall, very impressive numbers. You know, some things are down a little bit, other things are up a bit, but, you know, still doing well and consistent with other top schools. One thing that did jump out at me and, you know, I gotta ask them next time I hang out with Yale folks, is that Mid Atlantic figure. I wonder, you know, it was 11% of the class of 24, and it's only 4.8% in the class of 25. And I wondered, is something happening with respect to Yale grads who, you know, have a reputation for working a little bit sometimes at the intersection of public and private? Maybe fewer Yale grads are heading to Trump's Washington, D.C. with his administration in play versus prior years. I don't know what's going on there, but that was one thing that sort of jumped to my mind.
• 17:27
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's quite an interesting observation, Graham. I thought you were going to say maybe they moved Philadelphia into the Northeast.
• 17:35
  Speaker A: No, no, no. So in any event, we'll see. I'll try to find out what, what's, what's behind that. But yeah, so that's, that's about it. I, you know, in terms of things that I had, obviously, if people want to write to us, just write to infoearadmit.com use the subject line Wiretaps. We'd love to hear your stories. Let us know what you do when you listen to the show or if you have a question about your applications or anything at all, just drop us a line. But, Alex, you've picked out some candidates. Should we talk about them?
• 18:00
  Speaker B: Let's kick on.
• 18:01
  Speaker A: All right, so this is Wiretaps. Candidate number one. Our first candidate this week comes from an apply wire entry. And this person's applying to four schools. They have Columbia, Harvard, MIT and Stanford on the list. Now, full disclosure, they applied to a set of different schools in the first round and they already are holding in hand one offer at an M7 school, they didn't say which one, and a wait list at a different M7 school. So they've got those kind of, you know, wait list and an acceptance in hand, but they're going back out in round two. They've been working at Big four in consulting. They want to stay in consulting after business school. Their gmat score is a 675. If you're keeping score at home and are curious as to what that actually means on the old scale for the test, that comes out to like a 727 30. They had a 3.4 undergraduate GPA, four years of work experience to date, located in Washington D.C. alex, what do you make of this? I mean it's interesting to have someone going back out into the pool with an offer from an M7 school, but here they are applying to a bunch of schools in round two. So what do you think of this?
• 19:13
  Speaker B: Can you guess where they got the offers from?
• 19:15
  Speaker A: I'm going to say Kellogg and Chicago, but I'm not sure.
• 19:19
  Speaker B: Is either Kellogg, Chicago or Wharton. Right. I mean, right. Those are the only ones having M7s and they've got four of them listed in round two. So. Yeah, so, so yeah, let's just speculate that they've got an offer from Booth or Kellogg and they're on the waitlist. Either one of those two or a Wharton. Yeah, I think they've done very well. You know, their stats don't absolutely pop off the page and Big four consulting, whilst very good, is not mbb. Right. So, you know, it seems to me that their work experience itself, the actual projects that they've worked on have really helped their application pop. And they referenced that actually in a follow up comment that they think their last promotion and their last project really helped them with their apps. So I imagine that the work experience that they've had specifically within Big four has been very, very good and, and so forth. So, so yeah, that and, and they've got quite decent extra curriculas. You know, obviously they're a motorsports fan but they're actually doing some other stuff like supporting their alumni and various other things, supporting their, their alma mater and so on and so forth. So, so I, I think this is a very good profile. But, but it does beg the question how are they going to improve their applications for these M7 relative to what they were able to do in round one? So is there a bump up there in terms of maybe a more recent project that they can highlight and so forth. There is a learning curve to some extent in the admissions process. So the fluidity of their apps in the second round may benefit from that. And that in of itself could help elevate their overall profile. But I think if they're looking for an admit with scholarship to sort of challenge the admit without scholarship that they already have from an M7, that might be quite tricky. And if scholarship is fundamentally critical for them from an affordability standpoint, which it will be for several, you know, many applicants, no doubt about that, then looking at, you know, the next tier of programs might have been another strategy. And maybe they're doing that, they just didn't reveal it. So anyway, the point is they're applying in round two, Graham. They already have a great admit, so they have the confidence, I think, going into round two with applying to these schools and let's hope there's some. They get to hear some good news. I'm just, just a little bit nervous more about the scholarship side of it.
• 22:10
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, just as you said, like, I think, you know, what a great way to go into round two, they already have an offer at a top school, so they have that locked up. So they're playing with house money. But I will say, when I look at the profile, I wasn't as blown away by the outside activities like it seems like they, you know, they're a little bit involved with their, where they went to undergrad, they advise a family business startup and, you know, but I wasn't. I mean, it's hard to know, right? Like, there's not enough there. And I was, I was wondering if, oh, Big four consulting, somewhat average numbers, extracurricular is not jumping off the page necessarily. And so I was thinking, you know, yeah, same as you. I don't know that they'll get into all these schools they apply to in round two, nor do I think they'll get much in the way of scholarship. But you never know and you have to roll the dice and, you know, why not just see where things fall? But, yeah, I mean, I'm hoping that they get some additional offers and can weigh it all. But it's an interesting scenario and I do think, yeah, they're probably in at one of the Chicago schools, if I had. I guess so. Which is not, not a bad place to land at all.
• 23:12
  Speaker B: No, it's brilliant.
• 23:13
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 23:14
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 23:14
  Speaker A: So in any event, I want to thank them for sharing their profile. It's really unique to talk about someone who's, you know, kind of going into round two, who's already got something, you know in hand. It's a, it's a good strategy and it can only pay dividends. So we'll see how it goes. Let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two. So our second candidate this week comes from another apply wire entry and this person called has seven schools that they're targeting and they are you know applying to all these in round two. So they're going to apply to Berkeley, Emory, Harvard, Michigan, Kellogg, Wharton and Stanford and they want to start school next fall. They've been working in consulting. They have a 655 on the GMAT Focus Edition which translates to like a 700710 on the old scale GPA, 3.64 years of work experience. This candidate is located in Sydney Australia and is hoping to use the MBA to pivot to a role in San Francisco. So they want to land in the States. And you clarified with them Alex that they are applying in this kind of January round. I believe you also asked if there was any scope for improvement on the GMAT as it was a bit low. So why don't you tell us what they said to that and what you think of their candidates candidacy.
• 24:31
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean if you, if you think about it, a consultant coming out of Sydney, Australia potentially can be a, you know, an underrepresented profile. Right? I mean obviously we don't know a whole lot about them but, but you know, from a geography standpoint anyway. Yeah that would put them into that bucket. So you know they've got a good gpa, they're doing consulting work, you know, maybe MBB but maybe Big four, whatever it is and you know obviously that you know they're going to be judged on the quality of that work, their growth, their impact and so forth, not just the fact that they work in consulting but nevertheless, you know, this potentially could be a strong profile especially if they do have some extracurriculars, some other interests, outside interests that they can talk about in the application. But again the GMAT is a bit ho Hum at 655. It doesn't pop off the page, especially some of the M7 programs on their target list maybe for top 16 it's nearer the average and so on and so forth. They've got one top 20, 21 program in there so for those programs it might be perfectly fine. But I did ask them about potential scope for improvements but they've taken the GMAT four times. Graham. So when you're had that commitment and so on and so forth to retake and do it four times. I think enough is enough. I agree with the candidate. Time to move on. And hopefully other elements of their overall profile really do help them stand out. But I think again, schools will really like the geographic diversity and let's hope other elements of the profile, the actual work product as well as our extracurriculars, really helps them stand out. And, you know, they Maybe, I mean, M7 will admit folks with a 655G map. Don't get me wrong, it's just, you know, that 655 puts them on the lower, I don't know, standard deviation or whatever the right term is of admitted candidates.
• 26:43
  Speaker A: Yeah, no doubt. And I. I think for me, we talked about this before we, you know, started recording, but I was kind of thinking about how, you know, they have this sort of wide range of schools on their list. They have some M7, some kind of top 16, and even some sort of top 20. But I was wondering if they really want to be in San Francisco, do they need to adjust in some way and think about programs like UCLA or University of Washington, Foster or two that came to mind in terms of just making sure they can stay out on the West Coast. It's just something to consider. But I do agree with you, though, that, that this is an underrepresented candidate. I mean, you know, there are not that many Australians applying to top business schools in the US and that gives them a little bit of a feather in their cap. I also will say that despite the test score being low, you know, that gpa, as you point out, is solid. Right. So it's. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see where the chips fall here. But it wouldn't surprise me if they don't get into a few of these schools.
• 27:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, I completely agree.
• 27:44
  Speaker A: Yeah. I just, I guess it's probably, you know, because they're playing right now and they probably submitted a bunch of these. It may be too late to pivot to getting some of those other programs in under the wire because I think the deadlines maybe have all passed or will, you know, will by the time they hear this. But it did occur to me, you know, sometimes you got to really take geography into account if they. If they're dying to land in San Fran.
• 28:04
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 28:05
  Speaker A: But anyway, we'll see how it goes. I want to wish them the best of luck and thank them for sharing their profile. Let's move on, though, and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number three.
• 28:18
  Speaker B: So our third, if you're quick, Gray, we might get on to 30 minutes.
• 28:24
  Speaker A: Our third candidate this week comes from a decision wire entry that you picked, Alex, and this is a doozy.
• 28:31
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 28:31
  Speaker A: Okay. This person applied to 15 programs and they were admitted to nine of them. They actually got into. I'll just go over the ones I got into for now. They got into tepper with a $60,000 scholarship. They got into Johnson at Cornell with $40,000. They got into Georgetown, no scholarship there. Indiana, Kelly, 60,000. Notre Dame, 110,000. UCLA, no scholarship. UNC, Kenan Flagler, $88,000. UT, Austin, McCombs, 40 grand. And Vanderbilt, Owen, what is that, $54,000. So lots of scholarship dollars, lots of offers. The schools that did not accept them, they did apply to a bunch of other schools too, and they didn't make the cut at the likes of. Was it, let's see, Booth, Columbia, Stern, Darden, Duke and Wharton. So, you know, didn't get in everywhere, but they got into a number of schools and they basically tell us that they want to do finance, in particular, investment banking. By the way, they applied with a 635 on the GMAT and a 3.35 GPA. And this candidate is from New Jersey. So, you know, numbers not jumping off the page. You know, the GPA is a little bit below average and the GMAT certainly 635 is. I don't know where that lands, but that's sub 700. Right. So in any event, what do you know? So they've had these results and they came to us and said, well, where should I go? And both you and Elliot weighed in on this and so what's your take here?
• 30:02
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I'll just say this is a classic. This isn't a classic candidate. They applied, like, I think you said, 15 schools or something like that. Most candidates applied to six. But if you look at their results, you know, they missed with M7 and they started hitting with top 16 and then they got a lot of scholarship in the top 20, 21 bracket and so on and so forth. So the results actually are a credit, I think, to the admission emissions committees across the country because, you know, basically worked out this candidate is not an M7 candidate. They're a top 16 candidate at the edge of the top 16, top 20 in it. And, and, and the scholarships reflected that. I think they've got to go to Johnson. I'll leave it at that. They want investment banking, right? They want the best access to investment banking, likely in New York. And. And Johnson's giving them some money. Not the most, because they're one of the few schools in the top 16 that they got admitted to. But Johnson, with a little bit of money, to me, sits above the other programs because they want investment banking.
• 31:09
  Speaker A: Yeah, I tend to agree. I mean, we look at these numbers and Elliot on our team shared some thoughts with this candidate and some data that suggest that Cornell, Stern, there are a few others, are very strong when it comes to placements in investment banking. And as you point out, you know, Cornell's giving them like $40,000, which, you know, it's not the 110,000 from Notre Dame, but it's certainly, you know, a nice scholarship and a top school. Right. So I think that makes sense. I will say that, you know, it's impressive to me just because I was looking it up. You know, 635 on the GMAT Focus is about a 680, 690 on the original GMAT exam. And, you know, we know that's well below the average. So this person did pretty well and with some nice scholarship, considering the numbers are a bit low. And so they should be really pleased with this outcome. And yeah, I think Cornell makes a lot of sense in this case. And I don't know. I mean, it's tricky. Beyond that, I was mentioning to you before we came on air that maybe Kenan Flagler would be a good option. Giving them $88,000 has a pretty good track record in that finance concentration that they offer. But, yeah, this is an interesting thing, and I will say it's rare to see someone apply to 15 schools just really impressed because that takes a ton of work. And, you know, I hope they got their recommenders a nice bottle of something for to thank them because that's a lot of work. In any event.
• 32:35
  Speaker B: Now, brilliant. Great results, though, I think. And Johnson just, to me, really does stand out.
• 32:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. All right, so, Alex, as I mentioned to you before we start recording, I'm going to be heading out on the road across the US to do a, attend a GMAC leadership conference and some other stuff. But we'll, we'll, we'll figure out a way to get in an episode next week for everybody, too. Look forward to it. And thanks again for picking out these candidates.
• 32:58
  Speaker B: Very good. Stay safe, everyone. Take care. Of.