Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / Episode 385: Admissions Director Q&A with David Simpson of LBS

Transcript

Episode 385: Admissions Director Q&A with David Simpson of LBS · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

0:16
Speaker A: Welcome to the clear admit MBA admissions podcast. I'm your host, Graham Richmond, and this special episode is part of a very popular admissions director Q and a series that we run from time to time. Today I'm thrilled to welcome David Simpson from London Business School. David's official title is recruitment and admissions director for the MBA and Masters in finance programs at LBS. David has been with the school for over 25 years, starting in admissions and moving through various roles before actually coming back to admissions, and has been in their current role for quite some time. Those of you tuning in are actually in for a real treat since David is one of the most knowledgeable people that I know when it comes to MBA admissions. He's also a big music fan and concert goer, which is an interest that he and I share. So we'll try not to talk music during this episode. But without further ado, let's bring David on here. Welcome, David. Thanks for doing this.
1:07
Speaker B: Thanks very much, Graham. It's great to be here. Thanks for inviting us.
1:10
Speaker A: Yeah, no, it's always great to chat. So, as you know, I got a whole bunch of questions that I wanted to ask you. The first one though is just give me a little bit about your background. Like what's the path that led you to this current role at LBS? And again, I know you've been there a little while, so. Yeah, just tell us the story.
1:25
Speaker B: Yeah, I have. I have been with London business School a while, pretty much most of my career. So I did a business undergrad degree with a marketing specialty and as part of that we spent a year working, interning and I did mine at a UK university in a marketing role and I really loved it. And I come from a family that has education as backgrounds, so my parents were teachers and I've always loved education. So upon graduating, I thought, let's give this thing a shot. So I want to move in the education industry and that led to the business school industry and London business school. And I guess the rest is history. In my time at LBS, I've had multiple roles. I've been so lucky. I've seen the school grow and change as I've grown and changed and I absolutely adore it.
2:14
Speaker A: Yeah, I guess you've actually been through some interesting phases. Like, I mean, most important being, I guess the new campus or the second campus that's sort of right next to the main new building that they built. When was that? Like five years ago, I would say. They opened that or at least so.
2:27
Speaker B: We'Ve had a couple of big new buildings. So yeah, the one next door is one that we been looking at for sort of 30 plus years, I believe. But in the meantime we had another fantastic building, old Marylebone town hall, which is just ten minutes walk away. So, yeah, at my time we pretty much tripled the footprint of the institution, grown the number of students and the number of faculty, but kept the same community vibe that is sometimes quite hard to get with a campus environment in a big city. But we have it. I think that's mainly through the people we get rather than the buildings we have. But, yeah, we're very fortunate. It's a fantastic location.
3:11
Speaker A: Yeah, I've loved being on campus, and there's the beautiful main building, but yeah, just seeing the new building, the old town hall that they converted. And now I'd forgotten you guys took the building next door, which I knew you'd been eyeing, but I thought would never happen, so that's amazing. So tell me a little bit about. And I kind of. You sort of hinted at this, I feel like when you gave your background, but what do you like about your job? And then, if you're willing, tell us something that you don't like about your job.
3:36
Speaker B: Okay. I think with admissions, you've got to really love it, to stay in it, because it's relentless, especially if you're a reader of applications, where I personally think that anybody in admissions and up to directors really should be, because at the end of the day, who we recruit is the future of the school. So students make a business school. It's hard work. I read a lot of publications, and you know what? I still absolutely love it. So I'm very glad of the break between the admissions years, but then I'm raring to go to get back with it. And the same with when I interview, I always think I've got to learn something new from this interview, and I always do, whether it's about an industry, a country, or a culture, or a random area of interest an applicant has. So I think I get my learning vicariously through the stories of the applicants. And we're fortunate. We have lots of applicants and lots of great people and lots of fantastic people to have conversations with before they even apply. So my favorite part is very much meeting great potential candidates who, after a couple of minutes talking with them, I know that they're going to be a fantastic lBS student that, you know that switch when you. You're with somebody thinking, yep, you've got. You've got what it takes and you like what we do, this is going to work out. So it's by far and away my favorite part in terms of what I don't like. It's quite hard to say. I mean as a joke throw away comment I'm not a big fan of graduation compared to orientation. I guess I don't like saying goodbye. Although we never fully lose church because I was in an event for students yesterday and I bumped into a couple of alumni because we have an alumni centre within the one of the buildings as well, who I graduated 1015 years ago, who I know well and we ended up just hanging out for an hour and you never really lose touch with many of them. But I guess like any workplace there can be politics to navigate the more senior you get. And this is notoriously especially complicated within academic institutions. I think we're pretty lucky. We're fairly agile because we're quite small and nimble and independent. But still, like any organization, when you get to a certain level, sometimes there's stuff to wade through. But having been there a while, I know quite a lot of people so it usually makes it a pleasure to have those conversations.
6:05
Speaker A: Got it. All right, so one thing I wanted to ask you is to give me a London business school stereotype that you would like to debunk.
6:14
Speaker B: That's a great question. So a stereotype I'd like to debunk. It's a tricky one in a way because I don't hear this one so much anymore, but used to hear it all the time, so I think it's still worth repeating. We used to sometimes hear so you're a London business school, you're a finance school, aren't you? And as admissions director for the master's in finance as well as the MBA, and with our London location I say yes, we are a finance school, but for the MBAs we're in everything school London has representation of every sector and the MBA class sends more people into consulting and tech and finance some years and it switches around. So and we have strength and depth in every area. So I guess that's one that still is occasionally around. Another is, I alluded to earlier, which is about being a big city school and sometimes people assume that means you don't have the same community feel as a campus school or a more isolated school might have. But that's so far from the truth. Our students, especially in the first year of the MBA, often refer to lBS as the Baker street bubble because there's so much going on on the campus all the time that you don't actually need to do that much outside of it to have this amazing, life changing experience. But I'm always encouraging people to get out there and see beyond London. Another tricky one, I would add is, I know you said one, but I've got a couple here, is to say that we're elite, but we're not elitist. It's a super friendly, welcoming community of really bright, collaborative, globally minded people who are genuinely interested in each other, and that's why they join. And that's one of the reasons I love. But so there really is a big community sense at London business school, even though we're right in the heart of London.
7:58
Speaker A: Yeah. And I would say, and this is just maybe my kind of american city perspective, but having been to London a number of times, like, it feels very different than, say, New York. Like, London feels to me more like a city of neighborhoods and it's much more kind of human scale. It's not like you're sort of looking up beneath towering skyscrapers as you walk from one building to the other. So it has that nice kind of neighborhood feel around the campus. I've always found. And to your point about it being international and this great community, I definitely can second that. I mean, just in my limited experience on campus, I'm always struck by how it's like a little United nations, which the us schools have some international students, obviously, but it really, you guys put your money where your mouth is in this regard. I mean, there's just people from everywhere by virtue of your location and everything, too. So very, very interesting.
8:48
Speaker B: Yeah, it's totally true. And I still don't get used to it. It still comes to orientation day, the first day of program, and I think it's having the full class in one room, and then you're just blown away by the internationalism of the class and where people come from, the stories they have. And it's, it's a huge buzz and it's why people are attracted to us, and it's why most of us absolutely love working there, because you can't really get that in any other walk of life, even in New York or London, in other environments, because what we do is we manufacture it to be global, Max. It's put together on purpose to be hugely diverse, right down to knowing and expecting to have certain proportions from certain regions.
9:37
Speaker A: Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. Clearly creates a great experience for the students. Tell me, speaking of the students, what's one new thing that's kind of happening or maybe is going to happen when students come back for the fall semester or something on campus that you wish more people knew about.
9:52
Speaker B: We have a new dean. So Sergei Guraev's joining or just joined. He's a fascinating man who we're all really excited to welcome with his background and the vision he's going to put together with the schools. So for the joining students, this will be their dean. They won't know any different. For me, I've known quite a few deans over the years, so I'm really excited to have him start. And the other one, I know you asked for one, but I have to say this one. And that's introduction of our new one year MBA that we're going to start recruiting for this year to start in August 2025. And that's an MBA. That's for people who already have a master's in management or equivalent from an accredited school who want to build on that education with the depth and breadth of an MBA elective portfolio and network and experiences. So that's an exciting new program and a new dean.
10:48
Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. Wow, that's happening. We did, I know that clear admit did a piece about that one year offering and I was wondering. Yeah, I think we must have said it in the article, but good to know that you're starting to recruit now, so the first class will start next summer. Great to know. Tell me. Speaking about applying to LBS, walk me through the life of an application. I mean, candidates always, they want to know. They hit submit and then everything goes quiet, kind of. Right. And they wait and wait to hear about an interview or something or rejection or an acceptance. So just tell us a little bit about what does it look like from your side when the candidate hits submit?
11:22
Speaker B: Yeah, sure. So there's a lot of work that takes place before a candidate hits submit in terms of conversations between us and a candidate's research and us hoping to give them lots of information so that they can make their best application. But when they click apply and everything comes through, what happens is we work in for the MBA in like most schools in admissions rounds. So we'll gather together everything and we'll read them and that'll be at least a couple of people doing an initial read. We'll have all the information complete, so test scores, essays, all the mini questions and everything we ask for. And then we'll make our decisions. And we don't have a magic number we have to aim for, but we have an expectation of the kind of proportion from each round that we'll get an interview. And there's two decisions there. There's either interview or deny. And if for those who have been chosen for interview, the admissions team regional manager will match you with an alum interviewer. Because most of our interviews are done with alumni, quite often locally and quite often by somebody who has a similar work background, cultural background, or perhaps they work in an industry that matches your post MBA aspirational industry. So someone who's going to know a lot about you now that interview takes place and they have your application, so they will build on that. And it really is just a, you know, it's a matching interview. It's learning more about you. Meanwhile, as well as that interview, which is a very big deal, it's pretty much the biggest part of the the process. You'll also do a video submission via our partners care of talent, and you will. There's a couple of videos you have to send us, and that's just for people who have. Who are doing the interviews. So that when the alumni feedback comes in, we will then put everything together. The admissions committee meets and we will again, multiple readers will make decisions on who gets an offer, who's denied and or who's placed on the waitlist. And our reference points then are the application, the alumni feedback, and also that video submission as well. So we have lots to go on, plus any other interactions we've had with you when we might have made a note in advance on people we've met and people we've really liked when we met them on the road or via events, because all those interactions are important. You want as many sources as you can to help make a decision on somebody so you've got the full picture in the round.
14:02
Speaker A: Yeah, that all makes sense. I guess one of the things that I'm glad you mentioned is it sounds like the video component is, as you said, just for people who make that sort of cut to have an interview. I guess one of the questions I had is, when you guys are looking at the application in that second wave of reading that happens after the interview, are you reading everything again, or is it like you're just looking at the interview notes and the video that they submitted, or is this like a full thing? You're going back to reading the whole application and kind of weighing in?
14:32
Speaker B: Yeah, great question. Yeah, we do. So we will look at everything again. So post interview, we'll get the alumni feedback, but we will read it all again for full context because quite often the feedback will be referring to the career or perhaps even the essays. So, yeah, we want the full picture again. So this is really time consuming and we decided not to build in, you know, a number of shortcuts. We want to go through the whole thing and just widen our resource to do that, because I think it makes for very thorough decisions. And by having multiple readers, but trained readers within the team, we remove a level of subjectivity and get more consistency in there. And things like the video help us to do that as well. So we're not just relying on the alumni interview, but our interactions and what we read again as well from that application. So, yeah, we're reading the full thing all over again. And sometimes that's somebody's second read. It might be their first read because they didn't do the initial review on the application. So someone's application could be read by multiple people. But on the whole, I don't mind sharing with you. I will have read most, if not all of the people who are made an offer. It's something, something I've stuck with over the years, and it's incredibly time consuming, but I love it. And I guess that's a level of consistency that we have. Myself and my senior manager who works with me is incredibly experienced as well in that reading.
16:08
Speaker A: Got it. So while we're talking about the application again, and given that you're reading almost everyone who gets an offer, if not all of them, if you had to give candidates one tip about the essay component, what would it be? You guys have two essays this year, but what would you tell someone who's setting out to apply and wants advice on the essays?
16:27
Speaker B: So, yeah, the first essay is very business like. It's asking about what you've done, what you hope to do, and how we can help you get there. I'd say be sincere, be. Use your own voice. Don't overthink it. You don't have to do everything in the essay. This is answer the question, answer it well, answer it succinctly and just put across what you need to put across. The second, the new essay that we've added, I guess gives you a chance to be a bit more creative so you don't have to squeeze all these different attempts to do different things into one essay. But, yeah, be careful not to overdo it. With each essay, there are multiple opportunities to tell your story.
17:10
Speaker A: Okay, good advice. I wanted to ask you a little bit more about the interview process. So you said earlier that you try to match candidates with an alumni in their region. Often that alum works in the same field, or maybe was working in the field that the candidate is talking about targeting after business school. So I think that's fantastic. I mean, what a great opportunity I mean, putting aside the evaluative component, like what a great chance to meet someone who went to the school that you're trying to get into and who's maybe working in your field or working in the field you're targeting. But how do you guys do? I mean, any advice about the interview? And that sounds like a lot of work to try to find those matches.
17:51
Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, we don't match every single candidate that way with all the different criteria, but for some people we do. Sometimes it's actually useful to do the opposite and think, well, this person, you know, this person's had a really, really strong career and they've existed in this area and they're gonna, they're gonna continue within, say, let's pick on consulting and perhaps they're sponsored. Sometimes it's good to throw in someone who's got quite a different background because as well as your journey, you're going to be surrounded by other students who have very different stories. And we want to know how you react to different approaches to things as well. So sometimes it's a bit more wild card, but on the whole it's that matching. So we just, we ask for alumni volunteers each year and people come back year after year and we have the new class added. So we have a huge number of people who want to do this and it's a very popular way for alumni to give back. And there's nothing more valuable than time. Right? So they're giving their time to us and they have a big stake in it because apart from people like me, staff can come and go, whereas alumni, you're alum of the school forever. This is your brand. The future of the school affects how your career rolls to some extent, because as the school climbs and climbs, that's really valuable to you. So somebody who went to the school 40 years ago, you know, can, can bask in fantastic things that are being done at the school now that, you know, quite different in their day. So, yeah, so back to it. It's that matching things important. And it's a great opportunity for candidates to meet and learn from somebody who's been there and done it and ask very frank questions as well. This is two ways. It's not just a case of getting over the line to admission. This is someone who paid for it, who took the risk of leaving their job and life behind and decided to join a certain school. And there's another angle to it. So if you're from a country where there's a ton of business schools, so if you're an american candidate, you have all these fantastic schools on your doorstep, but you're thinking, no, I want to do something bigger. I want to go somewhere, somewhere else. I want this global environment, but I want to make the comparisons. Talking to somebody who had to make that same decision is really useful, I think, because it gives a different context that you can, you know, you can really relate to. So the multi levels for why we do what we do, and my team work very hard on the matching, and it's really hard work. And I feel for them. Three times a year, they have this huge amount of work to do in the matching, but it so pays off.
20:36
Speaker A: So is it fair to say it's not really like a gotcha interview process. It sounds like, you know, you're meeting with an alum. You just talked about how it's kind of a two way thing. So it's a conversation. I mean, are the alums asking you questions like, how many golf balls can you fit into the inside of a Boeing 787? Or. No, it's not that kind of thing. Right. It's more general.
20:57
Speaker B: I mean, the alumni have a score sheet with very specific questions to answer, to sell, to send to us, and they have guidance given to them on the kind of questions. But beyond that, they run the interview as best they can. But the way lBS works is a fairly friendly and open environment where you get straight to the point. But they'll vary a bit, you know, and it depends how strong the candidate is or how the interview going. Alumni know what they're doing. They've been trained. They do this in their work life as well, so they can go with the flow. For an individual candidate, sometimes they will push a bit, and if you. Those examples you gave, if somebody's aiming to be a consultant, they're the kind of questions you'll get in consulting interviews, and they might be an interviewer for a consulting firm, so they probably will introduce something. If you've said you want to do that, and I think that's fair, but it will be a balance. And then there might be a comment on coped pretty well with a mini case example type question or didn't do so well, we'll need to work on that when it comes to it. But the important thing here is remembering these candidates are pre MBA, and an MBA changes, you know, it changes your life, and it can change the way that you can perform. And you might, you probably wouldn't get into a certain organization before you start the NBA, but several months in, you've learned so much and you've changed so much. You could do. So. We. We are looking for potential as well as past performance and ability right now. So there's some element of, you know, taking a punt on someone, that they've got enough of the raw material. We think that we can help them grow to become what they want to do, or also remembering that, you know what? I'm not sure this person. Whether they'll make that particular job move. But an MBA is about choices anyway. And we know that most candidates have to think about their plan b, their plan c, or a different route to get to their plan a. So we try not to be too formulaic. And that's why that open conversation works so well. To ask the questions and ask about plan b's or ask about, have you thought this through? And what we're really trying to see is that people have been thoughtful. They're self aware. They've thought about themselves and their background and their future, and they've researched about what we do, what we do well, and what we do that's different. And they can bring that together in the way they answer questions. That sounds like a lot, but actually, that's fairly natural stuff once you've done the preparation.
23:41
Speaker A: Yeah. I appreciate you shedding light on that because I think it does help for people to just understand. And I feel like, yeah, what you're expecting in an interview is very similar to what one might expect as you go through the application process writ large. When you're writing these essays about some of the same sort of sorts of things, you know, what are your plans, post MBA, et cetera. So being ready to talk about that stuff in the interview makes sense. LBS differs from some of your peers because it has this sort of flexible format. And I think for most students, it's a two year program, and now you've introduced the one year for those who already have a master's in business or something. Right. Which you mentioned earlier. But I also know you can do the existing MBA at a slightly accelerated pace. Is that still the case? And can you just walk us through a little bit about how that's structured?
24:27
Speaker B: Yeah, very much so. We say our MBA is 15 to 21 months flexible. And what that means is there are completion exam board times. So you can formally complete your program at these three set points and you complete, and then you can get back to work or you can do whatever you want to do next. So it's this chance to off board formally at certain fixed points, which is great for people who I know if you're starting your own business, or you've got family commitments, or it's a family business, or you're sponsor only wants to have you away for so long, or you think that you want a shorter program. What actually ends up happening is many people express an interest in the shortest format, but only a few end up doing it because once you're in, you want to stay for as long as possible if you can. Honestly, that's the way it goes. But it's the choice is there. And the important thing is you make the choice during the program. You don't have to formally decide before you start. Okay, you do need to, you do need to fast track. It's hard work to complete in that 15 months because it means you have to front load electives and you have some compromises on which global experience you'll take and whether you can go on exchange, that kind of thing. So it's, most of the content's there, it's just that you're having to squeeze it in a little tighter. So as I say, that's not even half the story though, because the majority of people will take the full two year MBA, but they will build in flexibility to that. So some people might front load the second year or they might backload it, they might backload it and stay on it, do extra internships. So it's a real mix of what you're doing, or perhaps they're the student association president, or they're running a big conference or club and changing the weighting. At London Business School we have an elective portfolio that is delivered to our full and part time students. So we have lots of different formats. We'll have the typical 3 hours a week format over ten weeks or whatever. And then we have block weeks where you do the whole bunch in a week. And then there's several different patterns in between as well. And I know that's not unique. Lots of schools do that, but you have a lot of it, the school, which means that you'll be sitting next to executive MBA students as well as some of the masters in management. So it mixes up that learning environment yet further and gives you the choices to fit in with whatever you've got going on. And it's especially so for the MBA over that two year period where you can add and drop. And one thing we've done is to create a program called Capstone that brings everybody back together at the end, so that if you are someone who's in and out a bit more, then you'll have this natural off boarding point where we build in content and it's, it's content to make you reflect on what you've done, what you've learned, what you've achieved, network you've built, and how to springboard off to the next phase of your life and your London business school life as an alum and back into the world of being a full time employee or whatever you choose to do next. So I like that. I like that we bring people back together as well as giving them the flexibility and choice to complete at different times.
27:45
Speaker A: Yeah, and I think that one of the things you've said this to me before too, this idea that there's the flexibility and people can use it if they want, but that so many people who come in saying, I'm going to do this quick and get back into the workforce ultimately decide that they're having such a great time and making so many great connections with classmates and just wanting to kind of be there as long as possible. So that makes a lot of sense. All right, so a couple more questions and then if you're willing, we always do these lightning round questions with our guests, which are just sort of fun questions, but a couple more serious questions. The first is LBS is it's in a vibrant business capital. I mean, London is obviously from any the place to be in Europe, but can you speak to how the program sort of benefits from that? Like how do you tap into opportunities in London specifically?
28:32
Speaker B: So London plays a huge part of the MBA journey and in fact, any of the programs at London business School vital, that we put London at the heart of the experience. And that's actually how, how we do it through the experiential side of the program. So there's an example of the London cap, the London core application practicum and module that capitalises on our connections with the London business community. So it's an extended group project with faculty oversight and your group will be working on a real life piece of work that's been submitted by organization organizations such as recent years. We've had Knight, Google, British Red Cross, Mastercard, Peloton, or much smaller firms as well, who have a very big business challenge, something specific to work on. And it's a real life piece of consulting work. And it's yet another way to try to perhaps move into a sector or build experience or just do something a bit different. And that's where we've brought London in, or we sent our students out into London as well as the other things we do where we bring the world and London into our classroom so if you think of how many head offices there are and how many branch offices, how many most firms will have a presence in London, and if not, people are travelling through London. So we have a stack of people who visit campus to speak or even just to join a class because they're connected, say via faculty as well. You have access to a large proportion of our alumni who are in London, even though they're also around the world in 100 different countries, but a large number are in London. So it's really easy to get anywhere. Recruiters are a tube ride away, or people presenting on campus are a tube ride back to us. And then there's other things, like on the social side, you know, London's multiple airports, it's a really easy hub for travel. So during the experience, many students will have weekends away locally in Europe or further afield, but it's easy to get everywhere. And a final sort of travelling related one is the time zone. You know, in terms of business, that's one of the reasons London does so well, is because we've got access to multiple time zones, whether it's to the US at certain parts of the UK day, or all the way through to Asia, or even across to Australia and New Zealand for the extreme time zone difference. And all of this makes a big difference for the students, and they should be looking for their London business school experience to incorporate a lot of London. The final thing I'll say is, for the Londoners on the program, it's a big eye opener. They see their city in a new light because they're experiencing it with people who aren't from here. And also the access the school has to the city is unmatched. It's even bigger than they would have or their employers would have. So it works on many, many levels. And every few years when we review the program, which we kind of do constantly, but will add new elements that bring London into the classroom.
31:44
Speaker A: It's funny. So you talked about all that and you didn't mention live music or anything in London.
31:49
Speaker B: I'm trying to be professional here, Graham, trying to be professional.
31:52
Speaker A: But you are right. I mean, it is. The time zone thing is real. I mean, the ability to have a call with Singapore and New York in the same day because you're in the middle of the two is super useful. But yeah, just bringing in, I know about the London experiences that you guys offer in terms of those consulting projects. Sounds great. One last thing. Tell me. I know we've talked about the MBA admissions process and LBS's MBA offering for the bulk of the show here. But you do oversee the masters in finance and LBS has a lot of other offerings. So are you going to just mention a few of the other degrees that are on offer?
32:29
Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is really important that if you're someone who say, is working in finance, you've got choices. You can either take the MBA or you can focus in and look at our masters in Finance, which is a ten to 16 month program. So you can either fast track or you can take the longer route with an internship and a fourth term. We work in three terms, a trimester rather than semesters, and that uses the strength and depth in finance that we have through faculty, through research, through the London location to give you an amazing finance masters as a post experience masters. So the students are very much like the MBA. They're coming from all around the world and they. But the difference is they have experience in finance and they have a passion and love for finance and want to continue that long after it's into their career. And again, the classes mix for electives and stuff, so it's. It's brilliant. I absolutely love working on it. There's some amazing students. Other than that, we have graduate master's programmes, so designed for people who've just finished university, or perhaps they have a year or two's experience and springboarding their career, which they're really great and they've really taken off. So we introduced them some years ago, but they've grown and grown and they are a really important part of the community. And the final one, I'll say, all the way through to leadership programs, we have the Sloan masters, which is for students who have significantly more experience and maybe they're at director level and preparing for board level positions. It's a full master's program, but it's for this group of candidates, again, global, who are operating a much higher level. And they are a really unique and really special bunch of people. And the MBAs are very lucky to be able to sit next to them in the classroom because they have so much more to offer. So we have this portfolio of programs that can cover people at different stages of their career. And then, of course, you've got the executive education half of the school, which is offering shorter programs to people anywhere from, you know, a short program of a week all the way through to tailored programs for different organizations. And that's a really interesting part of the school as well. And the faculty teach across both and we try and bring the two together at times as well. And it really helps that you've got those corporate links for the master's students as well.
34:58
Speaker A: Yeah, that makes sense. I think having a full portfolio of offerings I think does enrich the experience for those in the MBA alone. I saw that firsthand when I was working at a school in the US and you just see that it's definitely a great thing to have and like you said, faculty kind of floating and being able to interact with all these different individuals. So. All right, enough of the professional stuff. We have this lightning round, which is kind of the fun questions. And the reason that we do this, by the way, is so that those applying to lbs understand that David Simpson is not some gatekeeper who's not human, just kind of looking at files and making these really difficult decisions day in and day out, but is actually like a regular human being. So that's the purpose of these questions. We'll just do them kind of rapid fire if you're ready.
35:50
Speaker B: Yep, go for it. I'm looking forward to this.
35:52
Speaker A: All right, so coffee or tea?
35:54
Speaker B: Oh, wow, tough question for an Englishman. I've got to say tea, don't I? So I think you do. Strong milk, one sugar. I do like an oak flat white, I'm embarrassed to admit in terms of coffee as well, but I'm gonna pick tea.
36:07
Speaker A: All right, there you go. Yeah. I was gonna say this is kind of a loaded question for a UK school. Beach or mountains?
36:13
Speaker B: I guess beach.
36:14
Speaker A: Okay.
36:14
Speaker B: There's gotta be a luxury hotel or nice cottage nearby, but yeah.
36:18
Speaker A: All right. Are you a morning person or a night owl?
36:20
Speaker B: 100% night owl. I don't like early mornings. Never invite me to a breakfast meeting.
36:26
Speaker A: All right, that explains some of the emails that you and I have exchanged after hours. All right, what's a pet peeve?
36:32
Speaker B: Oh, bad manners and littering. Hate those things.
36:36
Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, those are definitely low on my list too. Guilty pleasure.
36:41
Speaker B: I can't answer this. There's no such thing as a guilty pleasure. You should be proud of everything you, you love. And so I'm going to refuse to answer that out of prayer.
36:51
Speaker A: Okay. You know, it's funny, this is something that when I was in university, I would have been, you know, very happy to answer and say, oh yeah, I still like listening to kiss or something, you know? And now that I agree with you, now that I'm older, I'm like, hey, what's wrong with kiss? You know? I mean, you got to own the things that you like, right?
37:06
Speaker B: So.
37:08
Speaker A: All right, favorite virtue in others?
37:10
Speaker B: Oh, couple to choose someone, say either kindness or sense of humor, but let's go with sense of humorous. I think it's important in life and in work and in every part of your existence.
37:21
Speaker A: Okay, what's your happy place?
37:25
Speaker B: Physical place? I'm gonna pick Cornwall in the UK. So anybody coming to the UK from overseas, especially to London business school, it's like, go beyond London, see some rest of them. See the rest of the UK. It's a beautiful part of the UK, full of beaches, but interesting places to eat and walk as well. And great people.
37:45
Speaker A: And you know the co host of the weekly show? I do. Alex Brown. You know him. He has cottages in Cornwall, so maybe you can, you know, he could hook you up.
37:53
Speaker B: I guess he does. And they're in a really beautiful part of Cornwall. He's a very lucky man. He has a good life.
38:00
Speaker A: All right, what about a comfort food?
38:03
Speaker B: French white wine. That's a food group, right? I'm picking that.
38:07
Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm in France, so wine's a food group. Yeah. All right. What about your proudest moment?
38:14
Speaker B: Oh, wow. Professionally, it's nice when a dean thanks you for your latest class because we work so hard all year, and then when they come in, there's almost a sense of, oh, it's done. It's a very strange feeling. So I'd say that. I mean, on the personal side, I'd say, I don't know, watching my daughter perform at school events. Yeah. She was in high school musical this year, and I was dreading it. A lot of english girls putting on american accents and singing. That's not my thing, but they were great, and I was so proud. She had the best accent.
38:45
Speaker A: Excellent. All right, what about a superpower that you wish you had?
38:52
Speaker B: Invisibility is a bit creepy, isn't it?
38:53
Speaker A: So.
38:54
Speaker B: Not that one. I don't really like violence. I'm not picking any sort of strength. I'm going to say being able to fly, I think that'd be pretty cool.
39:00
Speaker A: All right. That's a good one. Yeah. All right, which part of the LBS admissions process would you be most likely would you want to skip if you were applying today?
39:09
Speaker B: Okay, back to business. If I was applying, I'd say what probably many people say already. The test, the GMAT gre. It's tough. So. Sorry, guys. You've got to take it. You got to do it.
39:20
Speaker A: Yeah. No, that's a very popular answer when we ask this question. And then last one is, what's the best thing that you've read or watched or listened to recently?
39:29
Speaker B: Oh, okay. Well, you know, I like music, so I'm always gonna pick music. I'm listening to a lot of music by a band called Big Thief and Adrienne Lenker as well, her solo stuff. So that's. That's what I'm into right now. It's. Yeah, check it out if you haven't.
39:46
Speaker A: Yeah, I know those guys. I actually saw them once when they first. I guess it was on that off the first record when they came, for some reason, they came to Paris and played at a relatively small place. But yeah, nice, kind of. I'm trying to think of how to describe it, listeners sort of. I mean, there's a little americana, a little kind of folk, but also a bit of indie rock, you know, so it's absolutely.
40:05
Speaker B: And it's really, really emotional. It's. Yeah, it's not the easiest listen, but it's amongst the best out there right now, I'd say.
40:14
Speaker A: All right, excellent. So, David, I really appreciate you making time. I know that you already told me you have some other events today, and so appreciate you kind of fitting us into the schedule. I know that anyone applying to LBS is going to just have learned a ton from tuning in today. So appreciate it. And yeah, thanks so much for your time.
40:30
Speaker B: Well, thanks so much for asking me. I've really enjoyed it.
40:32
Speaker A: Yeah, same here. All right, so please stay tuned, everyone, for more episodes of the Clear admit MBA admissions podcast. We'll try to get in some additional admissions director Q and A's, as well as our weekly wiretaps episodes. And as always, thanks for rating and reviewing the podcast. Wherever you listen.