Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 480: EMBA for a career pivot. Cybersecurity to consulting. Ross vs Fuqua

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MBA Wire Taps 480: EMBA for a career pivot. Cybersecurity to consulting. Ross vs Fuqua · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm Graham Richmond and this is your Wiretaps for Monday, March 16, 2026. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. How are things going, Alex?
• 0:29
  Speaker B: Very good, thank you, Graham.
• 0:31
  Speaker A: So this week we've got another great show. We've got the Real Humans alumni series is continuing and we're going to talk about some grads who are working at places like Google, Deloitte and Netflix. We've also got an admissions tip, some events, news and of course, three candidates to discuss. But first, what's up, Alex? Are there going to be any more decisions from round two release this week? What's on the calendar as we head into mid March here?
• 0:56
  Speaker B: Yeah, we're starting to see a few decisions rolling out on, on, on Livewire and this upcoming week, yeah, several schools actually releasing decisions, including Isa Darden Goizada, Yale Tuck, Insead McDonough and Georgia Terry. So, so we'll see an uptick, I think, this week of decisions coming out for round two, mostly a couple of them around three. And we'll also have several application deadlines. So those that are targeting the later round, round three, etc. Deadlines include said, Oxford said, although that's about stage five for them.
• 1:38
  Speaker A: Right.
• 1:39
  Speaker B: Mendoza, Imperial Goizada again, and Johns Hopkins Carey amongst the schools that have those application deadlines. So we're in that again, that transition period and in subsequent weeks we'll see a lot more of top schools releasing those round two decisions. So it's quite exciting times.
• 2:01
  Speaker A: And this explains why, you know, some of the schools that I regularly am emailing with, they've been kind of quiet of late and I'm guessing it's because they're like up to their ears in applications and committee meetings. And I do know that some of these schools, they literally will have committee all day, every day for a week or two straight as they try to finalize and get everything ready for decisions. So, yeah, busy, busy times.
• 2:21
  Speaker B: Yeah, busy, busy times. I would have written. We talked about this before we came on air. Right. But if I'm an application reader, like my old job at Wharton, I'd have a chat GPT, custom GPT helping me grade these essays. You know, I use them for grading for some other teaching work that I do. And they're just a really good sense check. Right. I'll read the, you know, whatever assignment work that's provided me. So it's not like I don't do it, but it's so great to have an independent assessment From a tool like that.
• 3:02
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I guess eventually it'll be, you know, like a candidate will call up Wharton and say, hey, your AI can talk to my AI and they'll make the decision about whether I get it. But no, it's, yeah, no, I agree. These things can be very handy, especially as you say, as a compliment. I think that's the big like, mistake that a lot of people make. They're like, oh, I'm using AI to do everything. No, it can be a really useful kind of assistant, as you say, a gut check, et cetera. So, yeah, good stuff there. This week is a really exciting week. I actually should have said this at the top of the show, but on Thursday, March 19th, we're doing our big event with 14 of the top US MBA programs. And it's a whole series of three kind of panels back to back to back. It's going to be a virtual event from, I think it's from 10am to 11:30am Eastern. And it's all about the global advantage of a US mba. So this is a special kind of event for international candidates who are considering the US and so we're going to have admissions reps, program directors, career services folks, et cetera from the likes of Duke, Columbia, Stanford, Yale, Berkeley, Cornell, mit, Kellogg, Chicago. Who else have I got here? Nyu, Darden, ucla, Michigan and Dartmouth. Tuck. So it should be a lot of fun. Join us for that. We already, we were talking about this last week, but I, I think we're already well above. You know, there are hundreds and hundreds of people signed up for this, so I think it's gonna be a lot of fun.
• 4:25
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think this is gonna be a really insightful event. I mean, yeah, we, we host a lot of events that, you know, I, I think are really good because lots of top schools are represented and they provide some good nuggets of insight. But this event for international students considering US based MBA programs to me is a must attend. And if not, figure out how to watch the recordings or whatever it might be. And we'll be training our bottom on the transcripts for sure.
• 4:58
  Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. And then the other thing I wanted to mention is on March 25, March 25, we're going to do our decision day watch party. So that's a day where several schools are issuing decisions. And as you pointed out, a lot of schools just generally in late March have decisions. So we're going to have a kind of live stream. I think Mike on our team and I are going to do it because you're going to be away. So we're going to do like a live stream for, I want to say two or three hours and we'll have some special guests, admissions directors, etc. And just watch kind of decisions come in in real time and take your questions. And so to be kind of. That's actually going to replace our AMA for this month because we'll take questions and as we did last time around, so should be fun. It'll be up, it'll be on YouTube and you know, there'll be more details forthcoming as I get information on the guests and everything. But I can't wait for that. It's gonna be fun.
• 5:44
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, it'd be very good. And obviously decision, you know, decision weeks for round two, as we talked earlier, starting to come thick and fast and during that time a lot of the very top schools are releasing decisions.
• 6:00
  Speaker A: Yeah. So that'll be fun. And then just a quick plug in May we've got a bunch of events. We've got our MBA fair in Atlanta on May 11th and then we're going to do four virtual events in May as part of our application overview series. Mike on our team's already got, I think 18 schools signed up for those events, including Berkeley, Wharton, Chicago, Booth, mit, others. So stay tuned for that. If you know anyone who lives in Atlanta, definitely tell them about our NBA fair. It's probably the only time of the year anywhere, you know, across the globe where you get this group of 25 or so top MBA programs gathered in one place. So that'll be fun. Yeah, all these things. You can just go to clearadmit.com events and sign up for them. Alex, some news and notes from the site. We did an admissions tip about Round two wait lists and I know not everyone has the Round two decisions yet, but some people do. And unfortunately some people are getting waitlisted or you could say fortunately. I mean, you're still in the game. But I know for a lot of people it's always a hard result to get because it's kind of a non result. But we did a big admissions tip about that and there are kind of six key sort of pieces of advice in the tip that help you to kind of frame your waitlist situation and you know just how to get the most out of it if you're going to try to convert from from waitlist to admission. So you can see that over on the website. And then other than that, we've got some real humans that I wanted to talk about. Alex, if you're willing, we've got, I've got three of them that I wanted to go through. It's pretty, pretty good stuff. I love this series. And I know we were talking with Lauren the other day, our team, who helps put it together with, with Christina, and it's, it, it sounds like she's like, got a ton of them that are waiting in the wings too, right? Isn't that what she said?
• 7:39
  Speaker B: Yeah. And you're calling them Real Humans. Just to be clear, this is not as distinct from AI Bots. This is Real Humans. In this case, it's MBA alumni. Yeah, but we, we labeled the, the whole set of series Real Humans. Well, before AI became a topical conversation.
• 8:00
  Speaker A: Yeah, it'. Yeah, but what's funny is the whole purpose of the Real Human series, whether it's when we talk to students or alumni, is. Yeah. To give our readers and listeners a sense of like, what are these people like? And so I'm gonna start this week with this guy named Ryson Porter, and he is a Duke Fuqua grad. He graduated back in 23 and he works as a Treasury analyst at Netflix. He's 32 at the moment. He is originally from Massachusetts. He went to Elon University, which is in North Carolina, where he studied sports management. And then after that he worked in securities and kind of banking, financial services, you know, in a few different roles there, but all like kind of finance stuff. And then went off, as I said, to Duke, where he graduated and has been now at Netflix for a couple of years. And we asked Ryson, why did you choose to attend business school? And here's what he had to say. He said, I chose to attend business school for three main reasons. First, I wasn't excited about my trajectory and financial services, and I knew I wanted a path that better aligned with my interests, but I lacked the experience to pivot. Second, many of the roles I was targeting either required or strongly preferred a master's degree. Third, I was looking for new opportunities to challenge myself and I knew business school would offer me the opportunity to step outside of my comfort zone and accelerate both my professional and personal growth. So that's Ryson's take. He's obviously doing quite well. He goes into a lot of details on what things are like at Netflix and seems like he's having a blast there. But yeah, that was kind of interesting just to hear very, very clear eyed about why he went to business school.
• 9:46
  Speaker B: Yeah. And he's got a role in a company that's obviously quite a big player. Well, it's obviously in streaming and stuff, but probably quite an exciting environment, I would think.
• 10:00
  Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. So while we're out on the west coast talking about Netflix, I want to tell you about Barbara, who is a Berkeley Haas MBA grad. She graduated more recently back in 25, and she is a policy specialist in the trust and safety department at Google. She's 33, originally from Virginia, so she's also a transplant, I guess, out on the west coast now. She went to William and Mary for undergrad where she studied business administration, marketing and entrepreneurship. And before going to business school, she had done some work as data analyst and a manager. But also it sounds like kind of government related work because she was doing something about, it says, intelligence work, intelligence analyst and operations specialists for the US Federal government. So she did that for like four years. So she's working in the government and now she's at Google, has been there for about eight months. And we asked her, why did you choose to attend business school? And she said, I had this idea that I wanted to transition from government into the private sector, but that's about as far as the idea went. When you've been in government for a while, it can become hard to tell which roles are a good fit for you. At private companies. The language used to describe similar roles and tasks varies widely. I wanted the time to explore and figure out what I enjoyed and what even existed out there. I also had always wanted to get an advanced degree at some point in my career and the timing made sense. So that was Barbara's kind of explanation. And then we said, well, what's a piece of advice that you wish you'd been given during your mba? And this was interesting. She said, I wish someone had told me at the beginning that while it is important to bond with your fellow MBAs, of course it is also crucial for balance and perspective to get outside of the MBA bubble. Sometimes having relationships with people who aren't going through the degree program at the same time as you can help ground you and keep things in perspective. I realized this partway through the program and found that forming external relationships was something that brought me a lot of joy. So that was kind of an interesting take from her. I hadn't heard someone say that before.
• 12:09
  Speaker B: Oh, that's completely new to me in terms of a piece of advice. But like most things that we hear, it makes a lot of sense sort of having a little bit of that balance and so forth. And it sounds like she's landed an interesting role at Google, which takes advantage of her government experience and so forth. And it's a Very topical role.
• 12:32
  Speaker A: Yeah. And she goes into some of the details of that and the recruiting process for Google and yeah, it sounds like a really fascinating. Yeah, perfect fit for her. But I also think it's funny, this idea of getting out of the MBA bubble. And I think that's something that probably everyone could do in life more generally because I think the way the world has moved is that we're all kind of siloed in our communities online and groups. You know, we kind of only have with people who have the same views as us sometimes. So I think that's a good, good piece of advice is to just get out there a and when you're at a place like Berkeley or any of these programs that we typically talk about, there's often a very rich kind of community of a larger university that you can tap into and even surrounding community. Right. So any event, very good stuff from Barbara, who's a Haas grad. Last one I have for you is this guy named Mike who is a Cornell Johnson MBA, also graduated back in 25 and he's now a senior consultant at Deloitte. He's 31, from Concord, Mass. Originally went to Bucknell for undergrad where he studied political science and English, but then obviously went off to business school. But before business school, he had worked as a senior manager in a private equity practice group at a place called Cushman and Wakefield. And he'd done, I guess it was in a. Maybe I want to say it's commercial real estate. So think real estate. Private equity was his role. And now he's a consultant working in strategy and transactions at Deloitte. And we asked him, and I thought this was so great and I'm sure Cornell loved this too. But we asked, why Cornell Johnson? Like why, you know, how did you decide to go there? And here's what Mike had to say. He said the community without question, was it. Johnson has a tight knit, genuine supportive culture. From the moment I interacted with students and alumni, it felt collaborative rather than competitive. People wanted each other to win. I was also drawn to the small class size, strong consulting outcomes, and the hands on strategy and consulting immersion. I learned best by doing. And Johnson's experiential model really resonated with me. Add in strong Northeast recruiting access and it felt like the right mix of community and career upside. And then we also just asked him any advice that you have that you wished you'd had while you were doing the mba. And he said this. He said, it's okay to say no. Business school is filled with incredible opportunities. But you can't do everything. Being intentional about how you spend your time is critical. Some of the most valuable growth comes from not doing more, but from focusing deeply on what aligns with your goals and interests. Protect your energy. Prioritize what moves the needle for you. So anyway, good advice from Mike at Cornell. Any thoughts on that?
• 15:15
  Speaker B: Yeah, and he just again, makes a great case for having a really well developed plan before going to business school because you will get overwhelmed with opportunities and it is hard to say no. So. Yeah, very good.
• 15:30
  Speaker A: Yeah. Anyway, that's all I had in terms of news and notes for this week. I know you've picked out some candidates. Obviously, if anyone wants to talk to us, you can write infoearadmit.com, use the subject line wiretaps and we'll get you a response as soon as we can. But otherwise. Alex, are you ready to talk about these candidates that you've picked?
• 15:48
  Speaker B: Let's kick on.
• 15:49
  Speaker A: All right, so this is WireTaps candidate number one. So our first candidate this week had just three schools on the target list. And the schools are Harvard Business School, which is for their full time mba, but then Insead and London Business School, which the person points out is for executive education. So in the case of Insead, it's their Gemba Global Executive MBA, and with LBs, it's their EMBA. So kind of a mix of program types that they're considering. They have been working in consulting and corporate banking prior to business school and they're thinking about management consulting or maybe private equity down the road. They have a GPA of 8 out of 12, which is a scale that I've not seen before. Seven years of work experience. They're 33 years old and they are thinking of doing, as they say in the notes here, a consulting pivot. And they're looking for us to give them a reality check. And one other little piece of data that I'll share is that. And we can get into some of the details of their profile. But one of the things I'll share is that they did. They haven't taken a test yet and they're not really planning on doing so, but they definitely were curious to know whether we think their GPA, which they do describe as being lower, that 8 out of 12 will hurt them in Seattle BS, even if they have a strong professional trajectory. And they're also worried about the fact that they don't have a ton of direct, like formal direct reports. And their last question, and this is where we might spend some time Alex too is, you know, they're wondering like, are EMBA programs good for like doing a consulting pivot? So you want to go, you know, from an associate director level in finance to working at McKinsey Boehner BCG, is that, is the EMBA going to allow you to do that? So I'll stop there. There's a lot, lot of stuff from this candidate. But what do you, what do you make of their background?
• 17:46
  Speaker B: I think that's the biggest challenge. Right. If you. Using any MBA as a platform to pivot might be challenging, especially if you're, you know, clearly you're working at the time in your current company, etc. Etc. So making the pivot, I think is more challenging than if they would decide to leave their company and do a full time mba. I don't think is beyond the bounds for a candidate like this. I think they're a little worried. They're a bit older at 33, they've got seven years of experience. So yeah, they're at the top end of the spectrum, but they're not an outlier necessarily. So I would look into considering full time MBA programs. I think as you said, they got Harvard on that list, but I wouldn't just, just latch on to Harvard. There's lots of other opportunities in that space and so forth. So I would look into that. I would also look into taking the standardized test. Even if they do stick with the EMBA route, it might help mitigate this lower GPA that they admit they're concerned about, right?
• 19:05
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 19:06
  Speaker B: So at least by doing the standardized test, they're keeping their options open full time versus emba. And the EMBA schools will, even if they don't require it, will use it as an additional data point to be assured that they're going to be committed to the academic experience in the EMBA program. I have no doubt that they likely have really strong work experience and that will set them up well whether they target EMBA or the full time MBA program. Would like to know a little bit more about what they do when they, when they're not at work, what other activities are involved in. But I just wonder, I think that the big elephant in the room, Graham, is is it easy to pivot through a program where you're working full time and taking a program at weekends or whatever the schedule is for LBs and INSEAD and so forth? I think that might be more challenging.
• 20:12
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think it depends. Like, I think obviously if this person was like, maybe they've been working in oil and gas or something, there's like, you know, tons of experience in oil and gas and they go to do an EMBA and they're trying to get McKinsey or somebody to hire them to, you know, be a partner or in a senior role in the company of oil and gas kind of division of mc. Like if you have some very specific area of knowledge that you can translate, it can happen. But I worry that this person's young for an emba and yeah, they're a bit older for a traditional mba, but they're in that kind of no man's land and so that's dangerous. And I also worry, like you said, you know, they don't have a test so they, they have this lower GPA and, and so they're. Yeah, it's going to be tricky because sometimes if you're younger going to the mba, at least you bring like big numbers to the table or something and, or you're, you know, you're sponsored and it's an easy win for the program. So I, I'm worried about, I'm not sure they have the right kind of focus here. And, and I, and I think if they're really desperate to get into consulting, they probably would benefit like you say, from going to a full time MBA program, maybe even a two year program where they could actually, you know, spend the whole summer interning somewhere and turn that into an offer of full time employment. Obviously that changes the school selection. You know, they probably, I mean they could still look at LBs if they want to be in the UK or something or Europe and then maybe some American schools. I mean, I don't know, it seems like they could be in northern Europe. This person, it's hard to say. They work for a Nordic bank.
• 21:41
  Speaker B: They work for a Nordic bank. And if they are from northern Europe, that does make them potentially more attractive, especially to US programs because they're not overrepresented. But even insead, I know it's a one year program, but they're very good for consulting. Right. So insead full time would be, would, would, would be probably very interesting for them because I think they probably have a slightly older class A. They do, they do and so forth. So, so yeah, I think full time, do it, take the standardized test, get a great score. They'll have lots of opportunity, I would think.
• 22:23
  Speaker A: Yeah. And my guess is this person's going to say, oh, I don't really want to, I want to make money while I'm getting this degree and that's the challenge. But it depends how badly you want to be working at a McKinsey, Bain or BCG or something because that's what those full time programs provide access to. So in any event, it's an interesting profile. I just worry that, yeah, they're kind of in that. So they're neither at the net or the baseline. If we're using a tennis analogy, they're sort of in between and that's a dangerous spot to be. So they need to make the decision. And that decision could be, you know what, I'm going to wait three more years and I'm just going to go all in on an executive down the road. But if they're really anxious, they should probably pivot towards full time and yeah, get a test score like you say.
• 23:04
  Speaker B: Yeah, very good.
• 23:05
  Speaker A: All right. I want to thank them for sharing that profile. Let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two. So our second candidate this week has a boatload of schools on the list. They've got Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Chicago, Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard, mit, Kellogg, Stern, Wharton, Stanford, uva, Darden, and Yale. And they're looking to start in the fall of 27. So they're, you know, got a little time here before they start applying. They've been working their whole pre MBA career in cybersecurity and they're thinking about making a pivot with the MBA into consulting. They have a 3.6 GPA, but that's from a master's degree that they did at NYU in cybersecurity. And the reason they listed that is because they don't actually have an undergraduate GPA. They did a B.S. they say in cybersecurity, but it was from a competency based program which was just pass fail. So I'm not really sure exactly what that means. But the gist of it is they don't have a GPA from undergrad. They have five years of work experience and as I said, all of it inside the they started out at a Fortune 100 insurance firm before moving into the current org that they work for, which is in the critical infrastructure sector. And you know, they're doing quite well at work. They also do quite a bit outside of work. They are involved in some pro bono consulting for some NGOs and you know, it sounds like they're on the board of a nonprofit as well. And that, that, that is not cybersecurity based. So they're I think trying to show us that they're not only a one trick pony as we like to say. And again, as I said, they want to transition into digital strategy Consulting ideally with mbb and they're wondering what programs we think they should look at, which I guess is why they have 13 on the list. They're looking to narrow that down maybe. And they're test prepping right now for the GRE. They haven't taken it yet, but they're targeting 325 plus. So what do you make of this candidate?
• 25:10
  Speaker B: Well, I think, you know, I would like to see them get that 325 plus closer to 330. And they're going to need to use the optional essay to explain this undergraduate experience. And also obviously they've got the Stern Masters, but it's going to, I'm not saying necessarily raise a red flag, but you know, every school that I'm aware of will ask for your undergraduate gpa, so they're going to have to deal with that. And having a really strong test score, not just at the medium, but strong will further help mitigate that particular issue. So if they can overcome that, Graham, I think this is possibly a very strong candidate. They're in a very hot sector, cyber security or I don't know, you call that a sector but you know, field or whatever you want to call it. Yeah, you know, and, and it's only going to get hotter, you know, with, with, you know, the next wave of technology coming. And I forget what they call that. Anyway, the point is cyber security is critical in, in the, in, in the geopolitical climate in which we currently live. And it looks like they're doing really good things in cyber security, not just on the tech side, but also talking up and managing up and so on and so forth. They're also involved in NGO cyber, cybersecurity, as you said. They're also involved in, on the board of a non profit. So to me there's a lot to like about that type of profile and, and, and the only thing that I would like to see on the goal side is tying it again to that cyber security experience that they have. Right. So if they're planning to do that, I think they're golden. Get over this undergraduate gpa. This is potentially, I think, a really interesting candidate.
• 27:11
  Speaker A: Yeah, and I think there's a potential for that because they talk about wanting to do kind of digital strategy consulting, so I guess that could involve some of that. So yeah, I agree with you. I like this candidate actually. If they get a high test score, throw that together with that master's 3.6 from NYU and I think, yeah, the academic box is checked. They have an interesting career background. Great activities, as you say. So I think this is a very competitive candidate potentially. You know, they really need to buckle down on the test as to where they should go, because they did ask about that, like, which schools they should target. I mean, I would just say, you know, probably apply to a couple of, you know, two, three, M7, and, you know, a handful of top 16, maybe one safety as well. You don't need to apply to 13 schools. That's what they have on their. On their list here. But I think, you know, some of these schools are really strong in placements in the consulting domain, you know, I'm thinking about. And some of this depends on where they want to be. Like, if they had a geographic preference, that might help, too, to narrow things down. But I do see they have the likes of Yale and Tuck on their list, and both of those send a ton of people into consulting, as does Wharton and MIT or others that come to mind here that I see on the list. They just need to figure out where they might want to be and then look at those placement reports. But I feel comfortable that if they apply to a range of schools across, let's say the top 16, they should be in good shape, again, assuming 325 plus on the GRE.
• 28:40
  Speaker B: I mean, if they target a range of schools in round one and they target, let's say, five or six, that'll set them up. Well, I don't know that they're potentially overrepresented in the pool. So if things don't quite work out, they've still got round two to make. Any adjustments.
• 28:59
  Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So, again, I like this candidate, and I want to thank them for sharing their profile and, yeah, just keep up the work and get that test score and hopefully everything comes together. Apply to, like, six schools. I would say don't go beyond that for now. Yeah. In any event. All right, let's turn our attention to wiretaps. Candidate number three. So our final candidate this week comes from a decision wire entry that you've selected. And this person, they applied to a bunch of schools. They applied to Cornell, Duke, Emory, Indiana, Michigan, and UT Austin. McCombs. And it looks to me like they ran the table, which is really impressive. So they got in everywhere. Cornell actually gave them a $100,000 scholarship. Duke, 90,000. A full ride at Emory, full ride at Indiana. Kelly, 60 grand at Ross, and 90 grand at UT Austin. So not only did they get in everywhere, but they have, you know, they're flush with cash to go to one of these programs, and they Talk about how they want to do agribusiness, consumer goods, food and beverage, maybe consulting. They have a number of kind of post MBA career goals and they do tell us that they're located in the Midwest currently and they say in the note that they are leaning towards Ross or Fuqua. So remember Ross is giving them 60 grand, Fuqua 90. And they said they would appreciate our perspective. They said I'm targeting strategy or general management roles in large food or agriculture CPG companies with some openness to consulting. So it sounds like CPG food type jobs is number one consulting, sort of a backup. And they say I'm flexible geographically, Midwest or east coast and I'm relocating with my partner. So lifestyle and, and city fit matter too. So how do you handle this? I mean they, you know, they've got into a lot of schools and they seem to have narrowed it down to Fuqua and Ross. Is that, I mean, what do you think about that? Because they do have a free ride at Emory for example. But what do you make of, of this candidate?
• 31:06
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I think the scholarship offers that they've got sort of align with the tiers of the schools they've been admitted to. Right. So yeah, they got a free ride at Emory and that's super generous and Amory is a very good school, but it would be in a tier below Ross and Fuqua. So, so I, I think their scholarship offers sort of helps level the playing field as it were, when you're choosing between these options. So if they can get, you know, get to like Atlanta, that would be good. They can go work for Coke or Pepsi or whoever is in Atlanta, post MBA or whatever it might be and, and that might work out really well for them. But they, they, they've, they've already looked at sort of narrowing the list and they, you know, it doesn't surprise me that they've landed on Ross and Fuqua. As we know with our internal data, these two programs probably have the highest cross applications and admits than any other two programs in the top sort of 20 programs that we cover. Yeah. So you know, you could argue, yeah, having 30,000 extra at Fuqua is, is very good. So that tilts towards Fuqua. And you could say, well, Ross is in the Midwest and probably a little bit more closely aligned with that sort of big ag and, and you know, cpg, etc ambition. So that would tilt towards Ross. So I don't think they can make a wrong decision here, Graham. I think it's, it's quite tight.
• 32:46
  Speaker A: So I want to just point out two things. One is, I think the reason they have Ross and Fuqua kind of neck and neck and that they're trying to decide is because they're from the Midwest and they, and you know, and they probably have some affinity for the region because there is a pretty big $30,000 difference. And as you say, Duke and Ross are, they're quite similar in terms of, you know, we see a lot of overlap in application and admission and things. But I just want to introduce one other thing which it sounds like they're not, not considering, but I, the first thing I thought of when I looked at this, this just jumped out at me was that they have a hundred thousand dollars from Cornell Johnson. Cornell's a, you know, Ivy League school. It's, it's arguably in the tier. You know, maybe it's like a tick behind a Duke or Ross, but it's, I mean most people would argue it's, you know, it's a peer, It's a top 16 school. Yeah, I, I think the thing for me about Cornell Johnson that just sort of piqued my interest is they have that, that massive school, probably the most famous program in the world for kind of, what is it, the hospitality, hotel management and that sort of stuff. They have a master's program that's world renowned there and that you can cross take courses with. And so because of that, they have a lot of ties into the kind of food and beverage industry. And so that just was something that jumped out at me and I was like, oh, I wonder if going to Cornell Ivy League with some of those ties into that might be appealing. But they seem to have dropped it. But I just wanted to mention it as a potential thing to consider. Other than that though, as you point out, they could go to Duke and maybe try to jump down to Atlanta from there and work at a Coca Cola or something. Obviously Michigan's really well placed geographically for a lot of these CPG jobs and food and beverage things. So yeah, it's not an easy. Like you say, they can't go wrong. For me, I do feel like the money's not insignificant. Duke is giving them 90 and that's quite a bit more than Ross. So I don't know, I don't know if they've tried to negotiate. I know schools love that, that. But I do wonder if they went and asked if they could get a little more money out of Michigan to Show Michigan the 100k and 90k from, from Cornell and Duke or something. I don't know. My phone's gonna start ringing with somebody from Ross yelling at me now, but, but no but anyway, they can't go wrong. But I think they've done a good job of narrowing it down overall. And yeah, they just need to decide where they and their partner might be happy because they talk about lifestyle and city fit matter. So they need to, to go to the welcome events, right?
• 35:13
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Very good.
• 35:15
  Speaker A: Yeah. So in any event, that's going to put a wrap on this week's show. Alex, thanks for picking these out. And yeah, it's an exciting week ahead with this big event with all the schools on Thursday. But we'll be back next week to do another episode for everybody. So stay tuned, everyone. We'll see you then.
• 35:30
  Speaker B: Very good. Stay safe, everyone. Take care.
• 35:44
  Speaker A: Sam.