Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 318—Army to aerospace and defence. Investment banker, two years of experience. Ghanian, textile business.

Transcript

MBA Wire Taps 318—Army to aerospace and defence. Investment banker, two years of experience. Ghanian, textile business. · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:14
  Speaker A: Welcome to the clear. Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm Graham Richmond, and this is your wiretaps for Monday, October 23, 2023.
• 0:22
  Speaker B: For more than 100 years, Emory University's Guisueta Business School has been a training ground for principal leaders and a laboratory for powerful insights. Whether you're looking to accelerate your career or make a career pivot, Emory's one year and two year full time MBA programs prepare you for a lifetime of career confidence. Learn more about Emory's top 20 MBA with top five career outcomes, offering world class academics and small by design classes delivered in a dynamic global city. More at Emory biz slash clearadmit.
• 1:00
  Speaker A: I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, how are things going this week?
• 1:03
  Speaker C: Very good. Thank you, Graham.
• 1:05
  Speaker A: So what's the this is last week was particularly busy with some decisions coming out for early action schools. But, yeah, run us through what you've been seeing on Livewire.
• 1:15
  Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, Livewire was very busy last Mean Darden would release their early action decisions. Duke Fuqua is scheduled to the back end of the week, and hopefully they'll come out just after we've recorded this podcast. But also Ross releasing interview invites. Columbia releasing interview invites, as well as lots of other schools that continue to trickle them, know, the likes of Stamford and Hass and so forth, and it creates a lot of conversation amongst the candidates. I haven't received an interview invite yet. Is it too late if I applied to Stanford or Hass or folks for those types of programs? No, it's not too late. They could do a search right on Livewire to look at the pattern from prior seasons, and they'll see that quite clearly. For example, Hass is notorious for releasing interview invites right up until this close to the final decision. Know, and Yale's kind of the same. They sort of have an initial spurt and then trickle them out for quite some period of time. So, yeah, there's lots of activity going on right now.
• 2:37
  Speaker A: Yeah, it ain't over till it's over, so hang in there. If you haven't heard, the other thing Alex, I was going to mention is I think tomorrow Wharton interview invites are going to be issued on Tuesday. So that's exciting. And they all come out at the same time, usually.
• 2:51
  Speaker C: Yeah. Wharton has a pretty clean process, applicant friendly process, I should say, much like Harvard. So they're scheduled to release their interview invite decisions all in one go tomorrow. So that's very good. And Fuqua is also doing that later in the week for its round one. So Fuqua had an early action round, which it's finalizing this week, and then round one, their second round, effectively, round one interview invites will go out for them next week. Their Thursday at Wharton. Big day for Wharton is tomorrow.
• 3:30
  Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. So everyone stay tuned. Best of luck. If you're waiting on a Wharton interview invitation, one thing I want to plug Alex november 1, Wednesday of next week. So, a little more than a week from when you're hearing this podcast, we'll be running our monthly Clearadmit Plus webinar. It's for any registered users on Clearadmit.com. You can go onto the site, sign up for the event, and join us. Those are always fun. It's kind of like an office hours where you can hang out with Alex and I and ask questions. We usually come in with some things that we want to share. Last month, we talked a lot about interviewing. That may continue in November too, but we'll probably also be talking about round two strategy and that sort of thing. So please join us for that. The other big thing, Alex, is I don't know if you saw kellogg got a $25 million gift to fund their Zell Fellows program, which is an entrepreneurship program they have at Kellogg. Helps people to kind of write a business plan and basically have sort of they sort of put into this special program where throughout their MBA they're kind of preparing for the launch of a business or in some cases, doing some entrepreneurship through acquisition. So, big gift there. Kellogg's clearly committed to entrepreneurship. So nice to see that.
• 4:42
  Speaker C: No, absolutely fantastic. Maybe the third candidate we feature today needs to take a good, hard, close look at Kellogg, since entrepreneurship is their goal.
• 4:50
  Speaker A: Yeah, good point. The other thing is, on the website we ran a classic Clearadmit admissions tip about defining your post MBA career goals, which is a question that many an MBA applicant has had to answer. And we also included the video from our admissions academy where you and I talk frankly about how you should go about doing that. So please read that if you're in that phase of the process. We did run a couple more class of 2025 student body profiles. So we have Georgetown McDonough and Michigan Ross who shared kind of what their class that just started this fall looks like. So, Alex, I'll give you some of these numbers. Georgetown, they had 258 students in the class that started this fall. That's actually up from 249. So they grew a little bit there. With that said, they had 1428 applicants, and that's down a bit, about 7%. So fewer applicants, but they grew the student body nonetheless. This year's class is 59% international. That's up from 42%. They have 31% women. That's off a tick. It used to be 34% in the prior year. Their GPA is a 3.34 on average. That actually crept up from 3.29. And they have an average GMAT score of 695 and an average GRE of 318. Both of those are pretty darn similar to last year. One thing that's kind of cool, Alex, is they told us what percentage of the student body took the GRE, and that was 37%. Is that surprising to you?
• 6:19
  Speaker C: No, not at all. No, I think we're tracking 40, 50% at some schools at this point. So, yeah, 37% very good. Yeah.
• 6:29
  Speaker A: Any thoughts on their numbers? I mean, they held the line, actually grew their student body. Seems like they have some more international candidates as a result.
• 6:37
  Speaker C: Yeah. I'm trying to remember, thinking back, was that growth deliberate? I e. Did they have a goal to grow the class size?
• 6:45
  Speaker A: It's funny you say that. I don't know. I was thinking the same thing. Like, I wonder if they are growing their class size a bit.
• 6:50
  Speaker C: I got a vague memory that that might be the case. If not, it's interesting that they were able to grow the class size. I do think that percent of international students, 59%. That basically means that 41% of the student body is domestic, and that size took quite a significant hit. And then that sort of reflects a little bit in the gender balance.
• 7:17
  Speaker A: Right.
• 7:18
  Speaker C: Because we know that the gender balance for domestic students tends to be a lot higher female candidates than for international students for a variety of reasons. Very interesting, out of McDonough that they grew their class size and their GMAT. That means 695 is very good score.
• 7:36
  Speaker A: Yeah. So, moving on, we have Michigan Ross as well. There's less to say here. I mean, it's pretty consistent. They have actually won fewer student. They have 379 students this year, as opposed to 380 last year. They were 43% international, 43% women, 3.43 GPA, 719 GMAT score, and a 322 GRE. And all those are pretty consistent, although the International number, as with Georgetown, was up. It used to be 36%. And as I just said, it's 43 now. They held the line with women. They're up, actually up 1%. The GPA fell off a little bit. I said it was 3.43. It used to be 3.5. GMAT score is a point lower, but nothing really crazy going on there. And the GRE is actually two points higher at 322 this year. So, in any event, pretty stable. But again, with a little more international students, and I'm assuming they didn't give us the numbers, I'm assuming they too probably saw a little bit of a decline in application volume and maybe backfilled with international to kind of maintain the class size. It's unclear.
• 8:40
  Speaker C: Yeah. But their numbers seem pretty consistent to the prior. Yeah. Overall, I think that's very good.
• 8:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. We continue to run our Real Humans series, where we connect with current students at top MBA programs. We connected with a handful of students at University of Georgia's Terry School of Business. One fun tidbit about that program is there are only 65 students in the entire MBA program. So, really intimate. It's in Athens, Georgia. Great college town. And it's actually mostly a domestic class. They're only 18% international, so it's probably pretty local to the Atlanta metro area, is my guess. 30% women, though, 3.5 GPA average. GMAT is 668, and the GRE, 311. I'm sharing those stats because we always run some of these stats in these articles. For real humans before we get into the conversations, but if you are thinking about Georgia as a school that's on your list, definitely read that article because you'll get up and close with I think there are four students that we profiled there, so good stuff there.
• 9:41
  Speaker C: Alex, I just called something out on this Graham, because this is something that I've talked about on several occasions, but these three schools sort of reaffirm that point that the higher up the school is in the tiers, the larger the class size is, because effectively the higher the tier, they're able to attract more high caliber candidates. Right. So you've got Ross would sit in that sort of top 16 tier with 379 students. McDonough would be in the next tier behind them, and they're coming in with 250 students. And Georgia Terry would be either in the next tier or the tier after that, and they're coming in with 65 students. There are a couple of outliers to that, like Stanford or whatever, but mostly the higher the tier, the larger the class size.
• 10:39
  Speaker A: Yeah, it is interesting how that does hold for a lot of these schools. The last thing I was going to say before we get into our candidates this week is that I can't believe it, but employment reports are here and this is schools publishing the job stats for people who graduated last spring. The first school to do so, that we've covered at least, is Michigan Ross. And they shared the fact that 95% of the class of 23 was hired within three months of graduation. Average salary starting, 175k. That's up 10,000 from last year. So, good numbers there. Consulting here are the kind of stats on where people went in terms of industry. So we have consulting, 45%, tech, 16%, finance, 14%, healthcare, six, CPG, 5%. And these numbers are similar to last year. I mean, consulting is up a bit. It was 42 last year, so it's up to 45. Tech is off. It used to be above 17%, now it's down to 16. Finance was 15, now it's 14. So pretty stable. But one thing that was interesting is they did share the fact that their top three employers of Ross graduates last year were McKinsey, Bain, and BCG. Not necessarily in that order, but those are the three top hires of Ross. Grads, what do you think about this? This is kind of our first one of the year, so it's interesting.
• 12:02
  Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, the numbers are super impressive. 175k. Obviously, the reason why that is so high is that their top employers are MBB and 45%. Going into consulting, I've still got to square this with what we're hearing, with offers getting postponed and so on and so forth, especially in the consulting sector and some of the other large feeder sectors that business schools deal with. But yeah, on the surface, these numbers look really strong. And yeah, congratulations to Ross.
• 12:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, agreed. And I think one of the thing that could be going on is we have heard stories. You see it in reddit and everywhere. And I've actually talked to some people working at these companies that some of the Grads last year have been given offers but told to kind of wait to start. So start dates have been pushed off at some of the consulting firms because they don't have enough business, I guess, and they're wanting to sort of slow the starting times. Right. So it's possible that someone's reporting, I have a job at McKinsey, I graduated from Ross, I'm making 175k. But their job has actually been pushed off till January of 24. So anyway, we'll see. One last thing we noticed is that in the terms of the regional placement, 31% of Ross Grads landed in the Midwest, 28% in the Northeast, 19% in the west, eleven in the Southwest, 6% MidAtlantic, 3% in the south. And the only thing I'll call your attention to, because those numbers are fairly similar, is that the Northeast and the west have kind of flip flopped. So the Northeast used to be 24%, and it went up to 28. The west used to be 24% as well, but it went down to 19%. So I think we're seeing a shifting of some of the job offers towards the Northeast for one reason or another. Could be related to tech hiring freezes and stuff, but hard to say.
• 13:56
  Speaker C: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
• 13:57
  Speaker A: Yeah. Last thing we've got on the podcast, there are a couple of additional episodes that we've been rolling out. I recorded a really fascinating episode with the head of Career services at Indiana Kelly and that came out at the end of last week. Basically, we had a current student at Kelly and the head of Career Services, and we just talked about the career journey. And this is applicable to anyone who's thinking about going to business school because just all about how do these schools, like, how does the recruiting process dovetail with the academic process and when does it start, how do they help you kind of figure out your target employers and land jobs so you can tune into that. And then I think any day now, actually it should be tomorrow, we're going to drop another episode about careers where I had a current student from NYU as well as the director of admissions at Stern, or an associate director of Admissions, I can't remember her exact title. Wonderful episode where I got to talk with these folks about just sort of career pivoting and how the admissions team looks at a candidate who's like, I want to make a career change, and then how we actually had the candidate who the current student at Stern talk to us who made a pivot. So it's kind of interesting just to see how does it actually happen in the program, but also how does admission sort of look at this? So that'll be a good episode to tune into when you get a chance. It should appear wherever you're listening to this show in the same feed. So check that out. Alex. I don't have anything else. We have a bunch of candidates to talk about still, so anything else on your side?
• 15:24
  Speaker C: No, let's kick on.
• 15:25
  Speaker A: All right, so this is wiretaps candidate number one. So our first candidate this week has seven schools on the target list, and those schools are Berkeley, Harvard, Kellogg, Stanford, UCLA, USC, and UT Austin. They want to start school next fall. This person's been in the army they've actually been in the army for, like, nine years, so a lot of experience. And they're sort of at this pivot point they talk about, know, they kind of become a lifer and just stay in the armed forces, or they could kind of go get an MBA and pivot into they're suggesting consulting as a target with Bain, BCG and McKinsey. And so they're thinking that that would be the better option for them. Their wife has a career. They don't like the move every three years kind of situation in the army, and so they want to go off to business school. GRE score is a 326, GPA is a 3.51. They're located in El Paso, Texas, and they would love to land on the West Coast after business school. They have a pretty significant leadership role. They're a commander of a missile defense unit, and they're in charge of over 150 soldiers and civilians, and they're consistently ranked in the top 1% of their peers. So lots of impact at work. Their undergrad was earned at a top ten public school where they did social sciences. They mentioned specifically, pretty devoid of any rigorous quantitative courses. They're going to be 32 years old by the time they matriculate, and they will have had ten years of experience at that point. So somebody to consider super active in their community. I might let you speak to that, Alex, but they mentioned that they already applied to USC and UT Austin, and that they're going to be applying in round two to Kellogg and UCLA, harvard, Berkeley, and Stanford. So they're just wondering about our advice and also just around school selection, whether they have the right mix there. So what do you think?
• 17:22
  Speaker C: Yeah, well, obviously this candidate looks really strong. I think they say they don't have a lot of quant in their undergrad, but they scored 165 quant score on the GRE, so I think that helps sort of mitigate that a little bit. So I think from a number standpoint, they're going to be perfectly fine. Their experience in the army looks really good. I mean, obviously they claim to be a top 1% across their peers in what they're doing. Like you say, a commander of missile defense stuff. It just sounds really good. So assuming that their army career has been really strong, also, I like their goals they make perfect sense. They want to get into consulting to sort of get that sort of business practical experience, to then move into a strategy operations role in a large aerospace defense company. Well, if I was to pick the most sort of standard goal for someone coming out of the services, that would be it, right? So they don't have to justify those goals. They've obviously got to make sure that they come across as being passionate about them. But those goals make perfect sense. They did make a query about whether they should be exploring MPP type programs also to dovetail with their goals, which I'm not sure that they need to do that, given that the elective offerings at the schools that they're targeting will have electives that align with what they want to do. I'm sure of that. So I don't know that they would necessarily need to pursue a dual degree. If they do decide that they want to do that at some of these programs, then yes, they need to address that directly in their MBA application too right, because it then becomes part of their plan and their goals. That was just a question that Abayed asked in one of the comments, so I just wanted to address that sort of a little bit more think, you know, the biggest potential concern might be just that they're a bit of an older candidate. So they've just got to show fit that they're really going to fully engage in the MBA experience. They really know how they're going to make the most of each of the schools that they're targeting and they're excited about and so forth. They made quite a long explanation about their options in terms of staying in the services, to retirement or going to the MBA as an explanation. And whilst I think that explanation was really useful for us to get a sense of where they're at when they're addressing their goals and their other aspects in their written application, I don't think I would take that approach. It might come up as a good conversation piece in a follow up question in an interview in terms of if they're asked about their other options, but I would go full head on that. Getting the MBA now is the right thing to do for these aspirations that they've laid out for themselves going forward. And certainly they can talk about their family situation in that regard, too. But overall, Graham, I think what we have here, if this person can really nail the why now and the Fit, I think they should be targeting top programs. So as we talked about before we came on air, they might want to be looking at a couple more M Seven programs. I think Wharton is a classic case that they should be targeting and so forth. But again, overall, I think very strong.
• 21:22
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's interesting. I think, like you say, 326, three, five. I'm not worried so much about the numbers. They should be competitive. They're not going to blow the doors off with it's not like it's a 40 and a 330 or something, but it's good. And so they should be competitive at top schools. I could not agree more. I'm so glad you brought up this idea of their logistics and kind of family plan with respect to career. I don't want to necessarily hear that in the application. I probably want to hear more about how Army's been great. I've learned a lot, I've had a lot of leadership, and I'm really excited to get into the private sector and here's what I want to do. I think that's the storyline they need to go with, and it's a common storyline, and I think to the extent that they could think carefully about what type of consulting would be most interesting to them. I know that they want to join one of these top firms, but if they can think about an industry focus, that would be great. I'm a little worried about this MPP degree idea. I feel like they're already older. I assume it'll add a year in order to get the joint degree. And I'm thinking, yeah, like you said, they probably, via some elective coursework can get some of that and then get into the workforce because they probably want to do so quickly and think about the debt. There's a lot of reasons why it doesn't really add up for me. And I also wondered if it would raise more questions than answers. Like, wow, this person's pretty old for an MBA candidate, and now they're saying they want to do a joint. Just I'm a little nervous about yeah, I completely agree. And as you point out, it feels like their current list of schools, and I know they want to be on the West Coast, so it seems like they hit all the usual suspects. They've got UT Austin. Which places? Well, in California and obviously UCLA, USC, Stanford and Berkeley. So they have a lot of schools there. I did think of Foster as another school, but I also think that, like you were saying, Wharton has that. So definitely, you know, they could spend part of their time out there. And I just was kind of wondering if they sort of have Harvard and Stanford from kind of the M Seven and Kellogg, but then they're ignoring the rest of the M Seven, and they have only, I guess, Berkeley from the next group of kind of top 16 type schools. So you're right, there's this gap potentially. So, yeah, they need to think about that school selection. I would encourage them to look carefully top 16 because that's probably where they should land. So anyway, yeah, interesting. I should mention they wrote huge fan of the podcast. I eagerly await each Monday morning to listen to your input and hear the stories from a diverse list of candidates. Thanks for taking the time to listen to my story and let's kick on. So there you go, Alex. But anyway, yeah, so good morning to that person and hopefully this advice has been useful. I do know they may have a lot of apps here for round two, so they may need to narrow what would you do, Alex, if you had to narrow this down and come up with a shorter list for the second round?
• 24:24
  Speaker C: I don't know if they need to narrow it too much, but I do think Wharton should be on the list. Ross, maybe we talked about Ross quite a lot today in the preamble, but Ross, they sent quite a few folks to the West Coast and to yeah, yeah. And to MBB. So they might be another one. I'd add Wharton and Ross. Potentially. And yeah, they said they might swap Wharton in for Anderson.
• 24:59
  Speaker A: Right.
• 25:02
  Speaker C: I'd still take a year. I think they're going to have good options. I think you've, you've sort of really helped sort of articulate a real good sort of strategy. Well, hopefully we both have, but I got to see them in a top program. They just got to nail this fact that they're nine or ten years out from undergrad, which is not unusual for a service from someone coming from the services.
• 25:30
  Speaker A: Yeah. And actually one thing I do want to mention is they do seem to have an industry focus that they mentioned in their comments and that's aerospace and defense. So I think that fits know, and that's another reason why Foster came to mind too, just because proximity out in the Northwest there. But I think it's Boeing that's out there, right, or the Lockheed Boeing now, or maybe Lockheed, I don't know. In any event, it yeah. So that industry focus will serve them well and it fits with the military. And so, yeah, I think they have the story. They just need to execute. And I wish them the best of luck in round two here. So we'll see how it turns out. And I guess they're going to soon find out how round one has turned out because they did apply to a few of their schools in round one. All right, let's move on though and talk about wiretaps candidate number two. Our second candidate this week is applying to just three business schools, and those are Columbia, NYU, Stern, and Chicago Booth. They want to start next fall. This person's been working as an investment banker. They would like to stay in investment banking after business school. They have a GMAT score of 760 and a GPA of 3.76. They've only been working for two years, so a little bit younger. They're located in Hong Kong and they want to land in New York after business school. And Alex, I know you had a little bit of back and forth with this candidate in which you sort of mentioned that the two years is a bit low in terms of experience and that their numbers are great, et cetera. And you asked about their outside activities because they didn't provide any information in their applywire entry. And so they commented that they have nothing outside of work, that investment banking is a very demanding profession, and that they're thinking about private equity and venture capital in the very long term. So after banking. So that was kind of the conversation you had with them. Alex, what do you make of this? Because on the one hand, these numbers will get some admissions officers. Their eyes will certainly note those big numbers, but as you point out, not too much work experience and it turns out no outside activities.
• 27:29
  Speaker C: Yeah, I mean the standard sort of star applicants at top programs, m seven or whatever, they'll have done their two year analyst program or whatever it's called in investment banking or consulting, and then done another two years either in the same firm or moved on to maybe industry experience or whatever it might be right. Or it's investment banking. They might have gone into private equity or whatever before business school. So that's your star candidate, or the star profile, as it were, that then combines with these really high quality numbers that this person provides. 763, seven, six and so on and so forth. So there's no debating that they're super, super smart. So are they a superstar in the making and therefore does a school want to take a fly a little bit of a risk because they see less sort of development and so on and so forth? That's quite possibly the case, but that's where I would sort of hesitate a little bit with this candidate. Is there enough here now to show that growth and impact and to show that they're on the right trajectory and so on and so forth to convince a top program that now is the right time? Right now is the right time to get the MBA for a variety of reasons. And they might be the sort of candidate that's saying, you know what, I'm going to take a flyer this season and apply, knowing that maybe I need to come back in a year or two as a reapplicant, but if I get the opportunity now that can accelerate my opportunities in the know. I think that's a perfectly good strategy too. It would mean that you wouldn't just take any option for the MBA, but only sort of reach options, options that you would be really excited to do. So they're applying to Columbia Stern booth they're all renowned for their finance orientation, which is the goals of this candidate. So that makes perfect sense. You could argue Wharton could be amongst them too, at the higher end, and maybe Cornell Johnson. If they absolutely determined that this year is the right year for them to take the MBA, maybe Johnson is another good option for them. So I have no doubt they're wicked smart and they probably work. Really hard as an investment banker would like to see some hobbies and interests. I mean, surely that they have some hobbies that they could talk about. So it doesn't have to be formalized volunteer work or whatever just to show that they're a little bit well rounded. I think that's important to do in the application. But I guess my overall feedback is after two years of work experience, are they accessing their best opportunities or would their best opportunities for the MBA come in another year or two?
• 30:36
  Speaker A: Yeah, great points. The only thing I will add is I would like to know more about this. You know, they're in Hong Kong, so does that mean are they from there originally? Is this an American working? Like, what's the context? And I asked because I think sometimes extracurriculars, they take on a different dimension depending on what job you're in, but also depending on where you're from and the kind of culture that you're living in. Right. So we don't expect to see as many extracurriculars sometimes in candidates out of, like, say, Japan versus candidates from the United States, where it's sort know ingrained. Now, as you also said, this person must have outside interests. And I think sometimes people too narrowly define what an extracurricular activity is or an outside activity. And so I think maybe they're a runner or maybe they like cycling or there might be things that they do. It's just that I recognize, and the schools will recognize that investment banking is an incredibly demanding job and they're probably working 70 to 90 hours a week or something ridiculous, right. So that will be taken into account. And I couldn't agree more. Cornell and Wharton are two schools that maybe would be on this list. They could roll the dice, as you say, and see where their chips fall. And if they don't get in, they can reapply. But yeah, it's an interesting thing because they have such great numbers. There might be a school out there that's willing to take a flyer on them that would be great for them, that would allow them to start earlier. But in any event, interesting case, though, and I think can they demonstrate we didn't talk about this, but can they demonstrate enough kind of leadership and kind of accolades and things from work that might suggest that they're wise beyond their two years of experience? So we'll see that's something they would definitely need to encourage the recommenders to focus on. But, yeah, interesting case. I hope that this is helpful and that they're tuned in to hear it. But Alex, let's move on and talk about wiretaps candidate number three. So our third candidate for this week is also looking to start next fall. And they don't have a school that they're targeting. They wanted our advice specifically on that matter. So they've been working in family business, and they are from Ghana based in Accra, and basically they're thinking about tech or maybe family business or entrepreneurship after business school. And it's kind of a long story, but essentially they ended up getting pulled into the family business, which is a textile business, even though they have an undergrad degree in aerospace, probably engineering or something, I'm guessing. So a little bit of a kind of pivot due to some needs in their family. Their GRE is a 325, so solid score in the GRE GPA is an eight out of ten. It's a different scale than we're used to. It could be that they earned that degree in India or somewhere. It's unclear where they would have gotten that degree, but they did say that it was from abroad. Again, four years of experience to date from Ghana. They have overseen quite a bit of growth and development in their family business, expanded into three different countries from just the one, and they want to continue their professional career after business school, but ideally out from the family business doing something different. So they're just wondering what kinds of schools they should target.
• 33:55
  Speaker C: Yeah, I think this candidate has lots of strong attributes. Aerospace engineer, presumably as an undergraduate. I think their performance is probably very, quite strong. 325 GRE is decent, certainly fits within the range of the top schools. Their international experience is probably quite good. We know folks that work in family businesses oftentimes have opportunities for greater leadership and impact because obviously they're part of the family and it looks like this person can show real impact and sort of increasing their business development in various countries and so forth. So that all looks really good. What I would like to see a little bit more from this candidate is more focus on the MBA and the goals, because I just get the sense that they've kind of done this, they've done that, they've done everything very well. They've got lots of qualities about them, but they haven't sort of narrowed that pathway. So their goals are sort of entrepreneurship, tech, family business sort of mix. They say that, but effectively they don't want to work for the family business for a while, so they want to get an experience outside the family business. I think they really need to think long and hard about that and then that will help them narrow their school choice selection. Because like we said earlier, I mean, obviously Kellogg's got this new investment into their entrepreneurship program. Kellogg puts a lot of resources into entrepreneurship that aligns quite well with potentially what this candidate is seeking. And maybe they need to select, as I posted into the comments, a couple of programs out of that M Seven band and a couple of programs out of the top 16 and then maybe one or two out of the top 20, especially if they really want to go to business school this season this year, rather than sort of if they get denied they could come back again in a subsequent year. So spreading the risk. And out of that sort of two or three programs. One or two programs in the M seven. Yeah, I think Kellogg is quite a good choice for this type of profile. And maybe one other ross again, comes up in that top 16 along with a couple of others and so forth. Graham but I guess my overall assessment would be this sounds like a really quality candidate. I just wish they'd sort of get their focus organized a little bit more.
• 36:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, they need to sort of have a clearer path to their career plan and then I think the school list will follow from that, obviously. The other thing, they may not want to do this, but there are some business schools in the top group that are quite good with family business. So Kellogg's one of them, actually, as well, and so is Wharton. There are others too. So I think they need to figure out exactly what they want to do in what industry, et cetera. And that will help kind of light the way forward for them. But, yeah, as you said, good numbers et. So I guess one thing I just want to add is some of it may also depend on are they looking for a lot of scholarship money or not? We sometimes see international candidates who are pretty bent on getting a big scholarship. And so then that can change the strategy too, because sometimes the higher ranked schools may not give out as much money unless you're, like, off the charts amazing. And so they might find themselves with offers from a Kellogg, but then an offer from, say, a school further down in the ranks that's giving them more scholarships. So they have to think about that too.
• 37:50
  Speaker C: Yeah, and I think it'd be interesting to know, is this person's long term goal to return to the family business, right, or are they just really trying to make a clean break? Because, again, that would affect their sort of strategy and their school selection, I think.
• 38:06
  Speaker A: Yeah, agreed. All right, well, Alex, some really interesting stuff. We had the younger candidate, we've got a candidate who really needs help, guidance with respect to school selection and career planning. And then our first candidate, obviously a much older candidate with a military background. So lots to discuss this week, as always. We'll do it all over again next week. Thanks to everyone who's been tuning in. We've had a couple of really nice reviews and even some shout outs. We were doing a webinar last week and somebody pointed out in the chat that we needed to tell everyone about the podcast. So I'm really glad that so many of you tune in week in and week out and enjoy the show. Alex, I'll see you next week.
• 38:40
  Speaker C: Very good. Take care, everyone. Stay safe. Sam.