Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 348—326 GRE, is that enough? Taking a break, before MBA. Kellogg, Fuqua or IESE?

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MBA Wire Taps 348—326 GRE, is that enough? Taking a break, before MBA. Kellogg, Fuqua or IESE? · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:15
  Speaker A: Welcome to the clear admit MBA admissions podcast. I'm Graham Richmond, and this is your wiretaps for Monday, April 15, 2024.
• 0:22
  Speaker B: Are you looking for an MBA program where you'll be more than just a number? Vanderbilt Business offers a personalized learning experience to help each student reach their unique career goals. Whether you're looking to switch careers entirely or accelerate the path you're on, the Vanderbilt MBA program will provide you with the individual support you need to propel your career forward. Vanderbilt is currently waiving their dollar 200 application fee for MBA wiretaps. Listeners to learn more about the Vanderbilt MBA program, it's a claim your application fee waiver, visit business vanderbilt.edu clearadmit.
• 0:56
  Speaker A: I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, how are things going this week?
• 0:59
  Speaker C: Very good, thank you, Graham.
• 1:01
  Speaker A: So, I'm a little tired because, as we said last week, I've been on the road this week, came over from Europe to the US. So I'm traveling around. I'm in New York state at the moment in a town called Schenectady, which no one else seems to be able to pronounce of the traveling party I'm with, but, yeah, so it's been a crazy week, but fun. I got some time at University of. At Cornell University's Johnson school, so that was cool. Got to hang out on campus there. Caught up with Eddie Aspi, who's the director of admissions, and took a walk around campus. It was a beautiful day. And I also saw the eclipse while I was here.
• 1:34
  Speaker C: Nice, nice. And you ran into someone at the airport, Graham.
• 1:38
  Speaker A: Yeah, so?
• 1:38
  Speaker C: Or the car rental. I forget where it was.
• 1:41
  Speaker A: I mean, this is the weirdest story ever. I'm at the rental counter, and there's a guy at the counter next to me who's, I guess, waiting for a car, too. And he's kind of looking at me, and I'm thinking, what did I do? You know, I didn't know. Why is this person staring at me? And then after I get my keys and stuff, I go over to the waiting area, because I got to bring the car out or whatever. And he's there, too. And he looks at me again, and he says, I feel like I know you. And I said, oh, well, I've rented at this car rental place before. Maybe you have, too. I just couldn't think of how I knew the guy. I mean, he didn't look familiar to me. And then he says, are you affiliated with Wharton or something? And I said, well, I did an MBA there, and I worked in admissions but that's a really long time ago. And he said, oh, it's so weird. He's like, I'm a first year student at Wharton, and I just feel like I know you. And I said, well, maybe, you know, the company that I work for, clear admit, and then this sort of, the light bulb goes off, and he looks at me, and he says, I know exactly who you are. You're Graham from the podcast. And he said that he listened to our show for three years straight, leading up to his kind of application process, and that he said he would never be at Wharton if it weren't for some of the advice we gave. I guess we featured him on an episode. He was originally from Congo, I think, and then was working in the Netherlands, and, you know, anyway, long story that I'm telling you, but it was just such an amazing experience for him to, you know, just share that the podcast had been so influential and that he listened every week. And so there you have it, Alex. We're famous.
• 3:13
  Speaker C: That's bloody brilliant. Actually. Extraordinary. When you shared it with us on slack, I was like, wow, that is fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. I can't say I've had an experience like that. So I just thought it was brilliant.
• 3:25
  Speaker A: Well, you don't. I mean, unless someone waltzes into the pub in your town, you're probably not gonna.
• 3:30
  Speaker C: And that actually, that has happened one time, but that was related to my horse welfare work.
• 3:37
  Speaker A: But, yeah, so the other thing, you know, one other thing I thought you'd be interested in, since you're really interested in trust and how companies build trust with their customers. And we talk about that a lot, you know, even with clear admit. So I bought an article of clothing the other day. I'd ordered it online, and it came in the mail, and there was a letter in the package from the CEO of this company. And the CEO said, hey, listen, we spend a lot of time making this. It was like a jacket. We spent a lot of time making this and trying to ensure that everything that goes into this product is not only well made, but also sustainable. And we're trying to use recycled products, et cetera, et cetera. And then it says, so we hope you're happy with it, but we want to ask you something. We want to ask you to take care of it. And that might mean, in a few years time, repairing a zipper or whatever, it needs to be maintained, and we'll do that for you. But we ask that you just not swap it out in a year or two because you see something new that's fashionable that we ask that you stick with it because we're doing our part and we want you to do your part. And I thought that was just interesting from a. And they talk a little bit about the environment and climate and everything else, so I thought you would appreciate that.
• 4:54
  Speaker C: That's what I would call level three trust. Coming right out. So can you send me a photograph of that ladder? I'd love to see it.
• 5:01
  Speaker A: Yeah, I'll send it to you. It's a company that's like a swedish company that's called Fjallraven. I can probably not pronouncing it right, but they make. It's kind of like a patagonia type company. Right.
• 5:11
  Speaker C: That's exactly what Patagonia would do. Yes.
• 5:13
  Speaker A: Yeah. So anyway, so we digress a little bit here, but what's the. What's. What's going on in the NBA universe this week? Anything important?
• 5:22
  Speaker C: Yeah, we're in the midst of round three now. Round two is completely, well, pretty much closed. There will be a few schools still releasing sort of rolling admissions or whatever decisions, but round three, and actually, we're hitting the interview invite season already, which people, as I've talked a little bit about on this podcast before, round three is a much shorter window, less applicants applying. Schools are much more agile at this stage. So, actually, this upcoming week, Duke and Wharton are scheduled to release decisions for interview invitations. For interview invitations. You got it?
• 6:02
  Speaker A: Yeah. Wow. That's amazing. So, yeah, it does go much quicker. They have fewer applications to read, so. Excellent. In other news, we're doing the event, as I've been mentioning the last couple of weeks, this big event in Chicago with all the top schools, you can sign up for that. If you live in the Chicago area or feel like being in the Chicago area on May 15, you can go to bit Lee Cachicago Fair. I won't even list the schools, but basically, if it's a top MBA program in the United States, they're likely to be there. So please check it out. And the other thing, Alex, is we're also kicking off in May our virtual event series. This is a series of webinars that we run with admissions directors from top schools, where we talk about the application process and ask them questions about how to source recommendation letters, how to start the essay, brainstorming process, all the key things that go into making for a successful application. And so we'll have three of those events over the course of month of May, and you can sign up for those at bit ly Caspringwebinars and I mean, it's a long list of schools that are taking part, but we've got Columbia, Wharton, Tuck, Berkeley, Duke, Yale, Emory, Georgetown, UVa, iNSEAd, lBs. It's a long list. So there'll be about four or five schools at each of those events, so sign up for that. Alex. The other thing is us news released their 24 rankings.
• 7:24
  Speaker C: Oh boy.
• 7:25
  Speaker A: I know what's happened. It's like us news have changed their methodology. I mean, this is going back. They started with this new methodology a year ago. They continue to tweak it a little bit, but it's. Yeah, I don't know. Do you want to say a few words about this?
• 7:40
  Speaker C: Yeah, I don't like it.
• 7:42
  Speaker A: It's different.
• 7:42
  Speaker C: Is that few enough? Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, you know, the top 16 of the top 16. Top 20 are the top 20. It's something like that. I forget the actual specifics, but I mean, they've got Harvard in at number six. They've got. I forget the other couple of one. I think Columbia was behind Stern, I think Anderson was behind Marshall. So this whole sort of greater focus on outcomes, I think that's what the ranking is about, which I understand its marketplace, its outcomes, or whatever, but I do think the quality of the incoming class has that sort of side of the algorithm has been reduced a little bit. And I think that costs harms the overall rankings. Now, I'm not saying outcomes are unimportant, but we had a long discussion, actually, in our team meeting about this a couple of days ago. Unfortunately, you weren't able to attend because you were traveling across the United States. But one of the things we talked about is this idea that actually CEO Elliot highlighted is a lot of their ranking seems to correlate with the percent of students that don't have an offer in hand or an acceptance in hand. Two or three months out, I forget the actual metric. And apparently that reflects why Harvard's down, Columbia and whatever. But I. I get into this issue of, okay, it's all about expectation. This was how our conversation went in our internal meeting. It's all about expectation. And some of these schools that are exceeding the expectations of the candidates seem to be doing better in these rankings. So my response to that was, well, that's great. If I go to the University of Delaware's MBA program, which is my alma mater, so I can talk about them liberally, and I get a great corporate finance job in Wilmington, I'm going to be really, really happy. But if I go to Harvard, and I get a corporate finance job in Boston, yet I was seeking a role in private equity or something like that. I'm just not going to be happy. Right. So the expectation level, I think needs to be considered. And also that drop off in percentage. And you'll know more about this than me, Graeme, I assume it's because some of these candidates from HBS are weighing offers and just haven't yet committed.
• 10:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, a lot of these rankings that focus heavily on outcomes, they tend to. Yeah. Any school with a sort of good track record for entrepreneurial pursuits doesn't usually fare as well. And then they also have this thing where they're looking at how your salaries in a specific domain track with the kind of average salary in that domain. And so there's a lot of nuance here. But the main takeaway for me is that us news has, I mean, you mentioned they changed the methodology to focus less on the caliber of the student body coming in. I mean, they really changed it in that regard. It used to be worth quite a bit in terms of like, well, what's the average test score, the average GPA and the selectivity type ratings and things. And that's really been smushed down in favor of how much people make, how many of them have a job within three months of graduation, et cetera. So, I mean, with all that said, as you pointed out at the top of this conversation, the schools that landed in the top 20 are the generally accepted group of the 20 best schools kind of thing, or even the top 25, we could say. It's just that the order has gotten kind of jumbled around. And the thing for me that's interesting is that us news, their differentiating factor had historically been this focused on kind of the academic reputation and the selectivity of the organization. And that's what made them different from, say, the FT's ranking, which has always been focused on kind of career outcomes and how alums do in the longer term, five years out, et cetera. And so now it's like sort of everything's starting to look the same. The only exception being us news just has us programs on the list instead of a mix of international and us. But, yeah. So I don't know. I mean, it's, I guess for those of you listening, if you hadn't seen it, Wharton and Stanford tied at the top. Chicago came in third. Then we had, and they were tied with Kellogg. Then we had Sloan, I guess, in fifth place, followed by Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, NYU, Dartmouth, Uva, Michigan, Columbia, Duke, Cornell, and I think that's the top 15 or so.
• 12:30
  Speaker C: Right.
• 12:30
  Speaker A: So anyway, that was the order at the top. But yeah, I guess, you know, it is what it is. I guess more people read when you change the methodology each year.
• 12:39
  Speaker C: So, yeah, I mean, like you say, it is what it is. These rankings, I think they're very good for very early in the admissions process, starting to look at potential schools and that. But, you know, obviously we've developed our own methodology using tiers. I think those tiers are much more relevant based off of a lot of data that we've acquired over the years. And, yeah, once, yeah, hopefully. Hopefully that makes sense. I will tell you unequivocally, Harvard is not the 6th best business school in the United States.
• 13:16
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's the issue, is that we have and we see this play out over and over again with how people make decisions. So in any event, it's, as you say, good early kind of processing in terms of if you're looking at rankings, to sort of build that initial list of schools. But, yeah, it's certainly an imperfect science. The other couple of things that I wanted to mention before we talk about this week's candidates are we did an admissions tip about the waitlist. And it's actually interesting in that it's a video admissions tip. It's you and I. It's a video that we made as part of the admissions academy. It's available to anyone. You can watch it. It's on the website. You don't even have to be a registered user of clearadmit.com to see it. So that's up, Alex. And we also ran three real humans. We had Maria, who went to Cornell and graduated in 21 and now is working at Amazon as a product manager. Really interesting profile. She's from Bogota and had been a lawyer and this massive pivot into tech. And I thought one thing that she shared that was really cool is we said, what's something that you would do again as part of the job search? And she said, I would ask people what keeps them at their jobs and what they would change if they had the power to do so. And she said, it's a self reflection question that helps you to get a balanced view of the role. And it's just interesting for an interviewer to respond. So that was kind of a cool question to ask when you're recruiting. I guess she must have asked that of the first folks you met at Amazon in that process.
• 14:39
  Speaker C: Yeah. Brilliant. Yeah.
• 14:40
  Speaker A: Yeah. And then we had Tony, who went to Columbia, graduated in 21, and he's at Google also as a product manager. And then I'm not going to give quotes from everyone cause I know we're trying to move the show along this week, but we also had Edward from Georgetown, class 23, who works at Johnson and Johnson. And the only thing that's kind of interesting about Edward, or one thing that's interesting is that before this job at J and J, he's from New York and had worked in politics as a deputy press secretary and communications director in the US House of Representatives. So really different job, right? And now made this pivot into healthcare. So in any event, read these. These are great. I just love hearing about these alums. And I think if you're an applicant, it's just so useful to see not only why someone chose a given school, but what they did there to get the job that they're currently in and what they think of that job, et cetera. So good stuff over on the website from Lauren and the editorial team. Alex, I don't think I have anything else to mention this week other than that people can email us at info@clearadmit.com and use the subject line wiretaps. But should we get into our candidates? Alex?
• 15:47
  Speaker C: Yeah, just one sec. I have one little thing to say about the waitlist video.
• 15:51
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
• 15:52
  Speaker C: Cause you rolled right into the alarms. I was like, I don't wanna stop you here, but to be very clear, this video is about those that are waitlisted after they've been interviewed because more and more schools now have this idea that they're not going to invite you to interview now they're going to defer you to the next round or whatever it is. So for further consideration. So I think candidates sometimes conflate the two. So if you didn't get an interview invite and you're there for further consideration, we don't really qualify that as waitlisted.
• 16:30
  Speaker A: Wait list, although you talk about it in the video. So I went back and watched the video when we heard it. And you do you make a mention of it. You just talk about how if you're waitlisted before an interview, that's like one pecking order lower down than if you were waitlisted after. You talk about how it's not the same thing and how it's kind of a worse position to be in. So. Yeah, so it's in there. You covered it a little bit.
• 16:51
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 16:52
  Speaker C: No, no, that's perfect. I thought I might have done, but there is actually a conversation right now going on, on Livewire based off of Columbia and some folks are wondering why they've got a waitlist manager versus some folks that don't. If you didn't get an interview, you're probably in the bucket that don't get a waitlist manager. You're being, you're in that further consideration. You're not actually wait listed.
• 17:15
  Speaker A: Yeah. Makes sense. All right. Should we move on?
• 17:19
  Speaker C: Let's kick on.
• 17:20
  Speaker B: All right.
• 17:20
  Speaker A: So this is wire taps, candidate number one. So our first candidate this week has six schools on the target list, and those schools are Columbia, Duke, LBS, Kellogg, UCLA and UNC. It looks like they are applying for this coming fall. So they may have already applied. We'll get into that. They had worked in consulting before applying here, and they want to either stay in consulting or do something entrepreneurial after business school. They have a 326 on the GRE and a 3.72 GPA. They've got three years of work experience. They're located in North Carolina. And it looks like, actually, I can see now in the comments that they're applying. They're going to apply this summer to start in the fall of 25. So just to clarify that. So you had some dialogue with them and some of it was around the GRE and stuff. But what's your take on this candidate? Because 326 372, they have kind of a balanced list of target schools. But where. Yeah. What do you think of their candidacy?
• 18:23
  Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, we don't know so much about their actual professional experience, how much growth, how much impact and so on and so forth they've had at this time and how it's supported by letters of recommendation and so on and so forth. So that's going to be really important. We also don't really know about their additional activities and interests. That sort of human side of them that sort of makes them, you know, who they are and so forth. But let's, you know, for the sakes of this conversation, assume those two buckets look really good. Their stats look decent. Right. 372 GPA, 326 gre overall. That's decent. And their target schools, they've got a couple of m seven s in Kellogg and Columbia. They've got a couple of top 16 in Fuqua and Anderson. They've got top 20 in Keenan Flagler. They've also got lbs on the list for toss one in there for international, I suppose. So they're spreading the range of their target schools. Looks pretty good. So my question sort of more to them is, all right, now you're planning ahead. You've got six months to apply. What do you have control over that you can do now to increase the quality of your candidacy. And one thing that potentially could be highlighted is they could retake the test. Right, if they knew there was room for improvement. 326 probably sits at the median for the m seven schools that they're targeting, and it's probably even a little bit above the median for some of the other schools that they're targeting. But a better score is always going to be better, right? So if they thought, well, I know I could get a 328 or a 330 if I was able to dedicate more time to it, I'd say, well, that's good use of their time, because not only may it provide them more access to these programs and other programs they might start considering, but it might also qualify them for. For scholarship and so forth at a higher rate. They got back to us and said, I've actually taken the gre a few times, so I've probably hit the ceiling, which, again, I think that's fine. 326 is probably a decent score when it's combined also with a 372. Right. That's a great GPA. So then they said, graham, they said, well, maybe I'll just try the GMAT instead. What do you think of that?
• 21:13
  Speaker A: I mean, first of all, the things that concern me about this candidate are, you know, they only have three years of experience. We know very little about it, and as you said, we know very little about their outside activities and all those things that could make them really compelling. They do have a wide range of target schools, as you pointed out. So I feel like with these numbers, they would land at one of these programs, most likely. I mean, again, we know very little about some of the work experience and outside activities. Right. But in theory, the numbers, to me, are good enough to keep them in the game. And so I don't think, I tinker. Now that we know that they've taken the gre a few times, I don't think I'd pivot to the GMAT. I think, if anything, the GMAT's going to be maybe a bit harder, especially because they gave us the percentiles on their gre, and that math percentile that they scored was not, you know, it's nothing to really write home about. I think I looked at it before we started recording, and they had like a 65th percentile on the math. So that means their likelihood of doing well in the GMAT math is probably even lower. So I would just leave it and maybe consider doing MBA math or business fundamentals to sort of show the schools that they're ready in case anyone does raise an eyebrow at the quant score on the GRE. But, no, I would focus on the other aspects of this candidacy and hope that they have a robust outside activities and interests and things that can help them stand out and that their work experience, albeit limited with three years, has some milestones and leadership and things that they can point to. But I'm happy with the numbers, frankly.
• 22:41
  Speaker C: Yeah. And they might actually have four years, years of experience by the time they matriculate. Right. So that would put squarely in the middle. So, yeah.
• 22:51
  Speaker A: So I think the main question here is just some of these unknowns. And so hopefully they'll. Maybe they'll leave some more comments on the post and shed light on the nature of that work experience beyond it just being consulting and as well as kind of outside interests. But, yeah, so I would, if I were them, I would focus on these other elements for now.
• 23:08
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 23:09
  Speaker A: All right. So I want to thank them for their post. Let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two. So our second candidate this week just has a few schools on the target list. They have Cornell, Johnson, Emory and Vanderbilt.
• 23:26
  Speaker C: Our sponsor.
• 23:27
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. Vanderbilt.
• 23:28
  Speaker C: Owen.
• 23:28
  Speaker A: And they. This person, I believe, has applied in the final round of the cycle this year, because they do mention an intake year of 24. They've been working as a product manager before business school, and they want to work in tech after business school. They've got Amazon, Facebook and Google on the target list. Their GPA is a 3.63. They have six years of work experience. They're located in California. And they mentioned that they're already working as a product manager. They left their job, though, recently to take a break before going to business school, and they're looking to use business school to transition into a role of director of product management or strategy. So they want to kind of move up in the ranks. They did confide in the comments that they applied with a GMAT waiver, so they didn't take the test. And they mentioned this because they did mathematics with a minor in computer science for undergrad. So that got them out of the GMAT at the schools that they've targeted here. And they say that they were a software engineer at a FAANG company for sounds like two and a half years, where they were lead engineer for a product, and then they left to go to Microsoft, where they were a product manager and had a lot of milestones and things. And that they also have some outside activities, community service relating to childcare and fundraising. To support education for lower income and minority groups. So they've done a lot. They indicate they want to land in Atlanta, if possible. You know, they have. I guess they have relatives there and stuff. So that sort of explains a little bit some of the school selection, the. But yeah. Alex, what make of this candidacy? Because I want to call your attention to these two things. I'm really curious to get your opinion. One is they applied to, you know, just three schools. It sounds like it's late round applications. They didn't take the test. They just got a waiver. So there's a lot of kind of moving parts here and. Yeah. What do you think of this?
• 25:16
  Speaker C: Yeah, I'm wondering if they recently got.
• 25:18
  Speaker A: Laid off, maybe because they say they're taking a break. Yeah, I mean, that's the other thing, like taking a break to apply to business school. That really struck me.
• 25:24
  Speaker C: You know, obviously in the news on a regular basis are these large tech layoffs. And I know I read, read one just last week, so I forget which companies now they all sound the same. Apple's doing it. Everybody seems to be doing it. And I only mention this because if this is the case, they should own it, rather than just say, I've decided to take a break. Now, maybe they have just decided to take a break. A break, and they've quit their work, and that's perfectly fine, too. But if they were part of the layoffs and other people listening, if you're part of these tech layoffs, then you've just got to be right up front about it, but then also articulate your plans and what you're doing and currently doing during this sort of downtime and so on and so forth. I had initially thought, Graham, that they were targeting next season. And I know they say intake year 2024, but it just seemed a bit odd that they were now applying. They've just taken a break from work and they were applying late in the third round or something like that. Anyway, if they were applying for next season, for example, I would definitely not encourage them to do the GMAT waiver or the GRE waiver or whatever, especially if they're not working. It just doesn't really resonate with me. If they have the time, they should go take the test. If they take the test, it could open up more opportunities. It could open up more scholarship opportunities at the schools that they're targeting. Even if they're applying in round three, there might be better scholarship opportunities because with their work experience, with their GPA, with a great test score, they could be a super attractive candidate for these programs that they have listed. So that might sort of really up the offer, as it were, in terms of scholarship, even if it is around three candidate. So, I mean, I'm kind of jumbling my strain of thought here, but there's a couple of things and the reasons why I selected this candidate. One is this notion of what do you do if you're laid off ahead of applying to business school? And my response to that is you own it, but you also articulate what you're doing in the meantime. Things like pursuing a passion project, something that you've always wanted to do but you've not had the agency to do it because you've been working too many hours or whatever. I'd be exploring that, but I'd also be exploring making sure that I got my best test score and that kind of stuff because I have the time. But, yeah, but I do think there's quality in this candidacy. It sounds like the way they've articulated their work output, that they've been impactful, they've grown. The two measures that we tend to look at for work, they do outside of work activities. They seem like a really decent human being. So, yeah, I like this candidate Graham. I just wish they had a test score.
• 28:31
  Speaker A: Yeah. So my take on this candidate is, I mean, it seems to me, I mean, they're only applying, only have applied to these three schools very late in the process. So they're like around three candidate, it sounds like. And, yeah, I just couldn't help but think, wow, you know, 363 GPA. If they'd taken the GMAT, they'd probably have a super score. Cause they're like a math major with a computer science minor. I mean, obviously a smart person. Three, six, whatever. So I kind of feel like, wow, they might have like a 750 on the GMAT or whatever the equivalent is on the new test. And then that could change this list of target schools quite dramatically as well. Because when you think about the fact that they worked at a FAANG in a kind of engineering role and then have moved on to be like a product manager at Microsoft, there's growth there, there's brand name experience, and their outside activities sound quite strong, too. So this has all the makings of a kind of m seven type candidate. But here they are late in the game, applying to just a few schools. So I don't know. It's an interesting quandary. I also am really nervous about the fact they describe themselves as they've taken a break. They left their job and if they're laid off, that's a whole other story and they can explain that. And that would almost be more compelling rather than, well, I just decided to leave my job at Microsoft so that I could apply to business school because my first reaction as an admissions reader to that is, you know, everyone else is applying while working and so why do you get to just leave your job? That's quite, you know, the luxury. And so, like you said, they need to be doing something with their time and they need to explain. And I would not explain. Oh, I just wanted a break to apply to school. Never use applying to school as the reason that you're kind of taking time off. I remember we went to Canada. It was like, yeah, I'm quitting my job. I'm just going to work on taking the GMAT for the next six months and then I'm going to apply to school and I'm sort of like, okay, but most people are doing all that while working, so it doesn't look good in any event. So yeah, there are a lot of moving parts here, but I feel like, will they find success in the late rounds? Hard to say. I suspect they might, given such that they have a pretty stellar work profile. But we'll see. And I just can't help but wonder what could have been if they were like around one candidate and applied to more schools and stuff.
• 30:35
  Speaker C: I think we're singing off the same sing sheet. Hem sheet.
• 30:41
  Speaker A: There you go. All right, so I want to thank them for posting and, yeah, we'll see how things turn out there. Let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number three. So our final candidate for this week's show comes from a decision wire entry, as we've been doing for the last several weeks about these situations. So this person applied to Duke Ese in Spain, London business School and Kellogg. And they got into Duke with a little bit of scholarship. They got into ESA and they got into Kellogg. It sounds like they didn't make the cut at LBS. They are entering this fall and they want to work in consulting or tech or maybe asset management. They have a whole bunch of possibilities. Sounds like they haven't really figured out their career plan. Exactly. They had a 319 on the GRE and a 3.85 GPA. This candidate applied from Peru, where they're from, but they also happen to have EU citizenship and they mentioned they're going to be attending school with their wife, who comes into the mix because they're trying to figure out where might be the best place to land. And the reason I mentioned that is because the wife could work if they're in the EU and go to Ese, whereas if they come to the US, the wife can't work, at least can't take a job. And the reason I mention that specifically is because the wife is thinking about maybe doing a startup which could be launched while the candidate is in business school in the US. You know, you can work on a startup in America. If you don't have working papers, that's fine, especially if you're starting that startup back in Peru or something. So in any event, it's an interesting dilemma and I think Elliot on our team had some back and forth. There were a bunch of people who chimed in on this case, but when we don't know, unfortunately, how much money Duke has given them. So, yeah. Alex, what do you make of this is kind of duke or Kellogg in the US versus ESA in Spain? Yeah, I mean, there are a number of other factors that I'm sure you'll get into because the candidate shared some other details too.
• 32:33
  Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I get into a lot of factors, but I mean, it is like us versus Europe in terms of where they want to be. And it seems like the US option is a bit more high risk return than the european option. And maybe the european options just makes things easier for their partner and so on and so forth. But I really thought that Elliot's point, when we've gone back and forth a couple of times, was to really think about, all right, in 510 years time, which would you regret more, going to Europe and not going to the states or going to the states and not going to Europe. And their response was they would regret more not going to the US because they've always been very risk averse. They want to try the riskier option for once. So effectively pushing themselves out of their comfort zone, which I think for, and I think we had, I don't know if we had this conversation on wiretaps or it was a conversation I had directly on decision wire with somebody, but. But oftentimes going to your MBA is your chance to get out of your comfort zone. I would still qualify as a fairly safe environment. So I think that was really great advice from Elliot and it pushed this candidate to really sort of think more. I think more about the US option. The US option is duped with some money. We don't know how much money versus Kellogg's. And, you know, at the end of the day, Kellogg would probably, depending on the money at Duke Kellogg. Kellogg opens doors. So a lot of opportunity, I would think, up at Kellogg or certainly at Duke, too. So, yeah, I'm meaning to. You ask Graham.
• 34:24
  Speaker A: Yeah, I tend to agree. I think that the earning power in the states is, as we see when we look at career reports, it's pretty dramatic, the difference. And actually, our favorite community member poster, Anand 10646, mentioned that there's kind of a big difference in the pay rates. So, yeah, this candidate mentioned, as you say, that they would really regret not going to the state. So I feel like go to the US, their wife can work on the startup. From there, they should go to either Kellogg or Duke. Without knowing the money, it's almost impossible for me to weigh in on that nuance of it. But I think they probably should go to the States. They have EU citizenship and you could land in Europe if you really want to. After an MBA in the US, I think it's maybe a little harder. If you're a peruvian national, you get an MBA in Europe and then want to go work in the US, that's going to be harder. You don't get the automatic visa to work in the States after an MBA program in Europe. Right. So, yeah, I think all things point to either Kellogg or Duke in this instance. But I do want to thank them.
• 35:15
  Speaker C: Yeah. Like you say, with the EU citizenship, Europe's still open to them.
• 35:20
  Speaker A: Exactly.
• 35:21
  Speaker C: With a US, NBA, us becomes much more open to them.
• 35:25
  Speaker A: Right, exactly. So anyway, I want to thank them for sharing all this great news, and as we always say, champagne problems, having decided between top programs. But good luck to them as they embark on this journey. Alex, we ran a little longer this week than usual, but it was. We covered a lot of ground between the rankings and the candidates and everything else we discussed today. But thanks for picking these out and we'll do it all again next week.
• 35:48
  Speaker C: Yeah. And that airport story is crazy.
• 35:52
  Speaker A: Yeah, nuts.
• 35:53
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Brilliant. Brilliant. Stay safe. Good luck, everyone. Take care.