Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / Episode 341: Choosing an MBA Program Type

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Episode 341: Choosing an MBA Program Type · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:14
  Speaker A: Welcome to the Clearadmit MBA Admissions podcast. I'm your host, Graham Richmond. And in this episode of the show, we're going to talk about MBA program formats and even some management education mats. As you research schools, you'll encounter terms like part time, full time, residential, online, evening, weekend. I mean working, professional, hybrid, global, and on and on. Right? So there are all these terms, and I've actually asked a friend of the show, Jr McGrath, to join me for this discussion. As some of you may know, I mean, JR is the perfect guest because he's worked in MBA admissions for many years, and he's currently the executive director of master's admissions at Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business, where he oversees the admissions process for a handful of different MBA program types and some other master's formats. So let me just give a brief kind of official bio on JR before we bring him out onto the show. JR has, I think, about 20 years of experience now or close to it, working in a higher ed. He's worked across a few different universities. He joined Tepper back in 21, and he's now, as I said, the executive director of master's admissions at the school. Jr holds a bachelor of science in physics. I got to ask him about that one. And then a master's in college administration from Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania.
• 1:30
  Speaker B: Welcome to the show, Jr. Hey, Graham, thanks a lot. Yeah, it has been a while working with college students. It is my passion. It has been really fun ride and have done a lot of things. And as you said, maybe a pivot from physics, but every once in a while, those old skill sets come into play.
• 1:48
  Speaker A: I'm sure they do. So what I wanted to do is let's just start because I just gave a really brief background on you. But is there anything else you want to share about your background? I mean, I know you worked over at SMU for a while. Obviously you've been at Tepper now for a couple of years. But yeah, just tell us a little about your journey and what brought you into this kind of arena for in terms of higher Ed and everything.
• 2:07
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I'll take the secret off the physics and we'll start there. So my initial goal was actually to work within high school education. I was going to be a physics teacher initially and then move up through administration. What I started to realize as I got closer and closer to that goal is that really what I was passionate about is working with others, helping everybody else reach and achieve their goals. And I thought I was going to be able to better do that within the college environment. So I did pivot and I went to grad school for that, which is very relevant for our conversation today. Right? Like, there's going to be times where people realize that maybe that initial path was not the right one for them. And then how do you go about then finding that right path and taking those opportunities then? I've always worked with high achieving college students. In my initial roles in higher Ed, I worked mostly with undergrads. I worked with them on creating experiences during their undergrad to lead to their first job and also got really passionate about leadership development. So started the first couple of leadership institutes at Syracuse. I taught leadership at TCU for a couple years and then that's when I made the pivot into graduate management education, which for me was more about wanting to be in a certain location. So I was already living in Texas, I wanted to be in Dallas. That's where my personal life was and the best opportunity there was within the graduate business school at SMU, met with the leadership there, had a really great fit. And for me, I helped run the full time MBA program as the start into graduate management education. After a couple years, the admissions director left the school, approached me and said, hey, everybody seems to really like you. You also know the program extremely well. Would you want to go out on the road and try to bring those best and brightest here? And what was interesting for me is not an opportunity that I was imagining in my career, but has turned out to be the best fit. And I've been doing master's or MBA admissions for well over ten years now.
• 4:00
  Speaker A: Yeah. Wow.
• 4:00
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 4:01
  Speaker A: And I know I ran into you many years ago, I think, on the road and I want to say out west or something, and you were working for SMU at that time. So, yeah, it's great to have someone with kind of your depth in this field. So let's dive in. I have some questions. We're going to talk program types and formats and stuff, and so I think our listeners on the show here are generally pretty well informed about what an MBA is and even what the degree can kind of do for their careers. But I tend to think they know less about all the different formats that exist. And I feel like that market is increasingly innovating too, with new formats. So I just wanted to have you shed some light on. Tepper has a broad range of offerings, so that's why I thought this would be a perfect fit for the show. So maybe just say a few words about the formats that you guys offer for the MBA and even some of the other things you guys do with GME. But it just would be helpful, I think, to shed some light on all those terms I was talking about before traditional full time hybrid online accelerated, all that stuff.
• 4:58
  Speaker B: Yeah. Graham and that's right. And I will say it is probably in some ways harder to be a candidate to find that right fit program because there are so many different options and everybody is always trying to use a different word or terminology to make yours maybe look a little bit different, but then makes that consumer or that end user that much harder to really understand, really what that means. We definitely have the traditional full time MBA. A lot of programs will call that their flagship program because that's really where a lot of times they built the basis of their MBA. That is their reputation throughout the world. And a lot of times that's also where everyone in that format is looking for a job. So that's where you also build your strongest relationships with those corporate partners, or at least traditionally where that has been done for us years ago. And I actually have to look at this of the exact date, but we got into the online space maybe earlier than some top business schools. And I think sometimes that's a function of what is the ethos of your school. Do you like to evolve and innovate? What is your local market? Do you have enough part time candidates in your area? So I think it was a combination of a lot of things of why we went into that market. But what we also did, and I think this is very important, we were very intentional about ensuring that our online program put in to the market the same level of MBA candidates. We did not want the market to say, oh, what program at Tepper did you go to? So we have stayed with that, we'll say like foundation even until today with our online program. So we've now gone into more of a hybrid model. And what that means is that you will have live class sessions twice a week. But for our program, you need to do these, we call them access weekends as well as we'll call now new right. Continue to evolve. They actually may be hot off the presses. No. 1 may know what these are called yet, virtual class kickoffs. Because we felt that one of the biggest components of a full time program was really getting people together all the time and building that stronger network and didn't want to miss out on that. But because of student feedback, we wanted to make sure that we are continuing to evolve it to meet what was their needs, as well as making sure that we have that high bar and then super quick, we also now started an accelerated MBA formats because as we were talking to more and more candidates, they were not getting as much out of some of the core coursework because maybe they had that business undergrad or they've already taken that coursework and they wanted to be able to utilize that hard work that they've done before in terms of taking newer concepts, because obviously business evolves so much now. A lot of the terminology that people are using is not around that core. Right? Like AI is the biggest phrase or keyword right now. So this was us trying to figure out how do we make that degree as streamlined as possible, but also increase that RoI. I mean, I don't know a candidate in the world right now that doesn't really talk about what is the cost of the program, what are scholarship opportunities, what is my Roi, right. And so for us, this was one of our ways of saying how do we increase that for candidates and for those formats, you're taking less semesters, so your tuition is actually quite reduced in those programs. And if you know exactly what you want to do, your RoI is going to be quite high.
• 8:30
  Speaker A: Right? Okay. Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense. So you have three very clear paths through your MBA, one being the traditional kind of two year full time in person, the other being your kind of online hybrid, which it sounds like you've incorporated a nice amount of kind of touch points so that, as you say, you can build that community. And then finally this newer accelerated offering, which seems, I think we were talking before we actually started recording about how this is the direction that we see a number of programs headed in, especially, like you said, if someone's already done an undergraduate degree in business, or maybe they even have a master's in management or something, allows them to kind of come in and get the MBA relatively quickly. I did want to ask you, though. So there are three paths through the MBA, and we might even want to talk a bit about some of your other programs because you have some specialized master's offerings in business as well. But before we go there, I just wanted to understand, one of the things we hear a lot about is people talking about, oh, schools have different program types or different versions of their MBA, but you don't get the same level of service. I thought it was interesting you were talking about how you didn't want to admit a lower kind of caliber of student into the online hybrid. So you've kept the bar really high across all three flavors of the MBA. But do all three versions of the MBA have the same kind of level of service. And what I mean by that is like access to campus resources and that kind of stuff.
• 9:49
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that's an awesome question. So the answer for us is yes. And again, this is maybe like reading between the lines when you look at other programs because a lot of people will say similar things. So for us also, we've chosen to keep the program at a certain size. So our online program, on average, we bring in now like about 110 to 115 students a year. So the same faculty that teach in our full time MBA teach in our online program, we don't have a whole separate set of faculty that do that. And you can take that almost like the whole way down the line. It's the same leadership coaches in our accelerate leadership center. It's the same career coaches in our master's career center as well as. And what I think that's so important is because those coaches are also doing our corporate development because we have the model of, you're a finance coach, you're a marketing coach. Right? So they're the ones keeping a pulse on those relationships and hiring trends. And that's also probably why our program has more students switch companies than any other online program because they have that expert that is really running the strategy for all of our mbas. Now, the one thing that I say we do have a dedicated team to is we do have an online hybrid. We'll call it student services or academic advisors. There is one core team that just does that program and it's because their students are looking for that support in different times than maybe those other students. So that team, there's a team of four that is dedicated to that population. So not only do you have the same resources in other ways, but you have a dedicated team. And then lastly, and the best way I can say this is, and this is what we believe. So if you're in our online program and you have the flexibility to be here in Pittsburgh, you can take a class in person. Now, you have to do that for the whole class. You can't say, hey, on Tuesday I'm going to be here, and then next week I'm online. And you keep kind of switching back and forth. But I think what that starts to showcase here is that if you're an MBA student for us, you are welcome to anything that is meaningful for you. And what I mean by that is our online hybrid. Students can pretty much do anything, but they can't go to an internship presentation or they can't apply for internships because they're supposed to have a full time job, right? If someone has that career pause or that problem, right. We're working with them individually on an individualized solution.
• 12:16
  Speaker A: Okay?
• 12:16
  Speaker B: So outside of that, we want them, if they can be here on campus, they can go to speakers, they can go to company presentations, they can interview on campus. As long as it's right, it makes sense for their program and particular full time roles for our online students.
• 12:32
  Speaker A: Got it. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. And going back to what you were saying about having a dedicated group that handles the hybrid online folks, obviously they're interacting with the school in slightly different ways, too, and as you say, maybe even at different times of day, et cetera. So that makes a lot of sense. You just kind of alluded to this, but tell me a little bit about summer internships, because that's something that we talk a lot about with respect to the traditional kind of full time MBA. But in the case of an accelerated MBA or a hybrid online where people are working while they're pursuing, I'm guessing they're not necessarily doing summer internships, although maybe the accelerated folks are. My view is that that can be a pretty important sort of step when you're pivoting your career, getting that internship leads to the job, et cetera. So, yeah, just walk me through how does that work for folks who are maybe accelerated or if someone is hybrid online and looking to change job or something?
• 13:25
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I'm going to take it one step back just real quick, because I think this is actually one of those best questions for what is the right format for you? So as you're looking at all these things and you're talking to us about, okay, so here's my background. Here are the types of things that I want to do in my career. Here's the types of things that I want to develop during my MBA experience that will start having us be like, okay, well, you applied to this format, but you want these things that are not really available in that format or not the norm in that format, right? Are you sure you want to do that format? So for us, we always have those conversations because we want everyone to understand what those options are for those different formats. But we also realize, right, this is where someone may be doing an online program because it's also maybe their personal responsibilities that dictate that they can't do a full time one. So we talk through all that because for us, career is one of those most important things. That's typically why someone's doing an MBA. They want those more career options. So that's a conversation that we have early, and there could be a trade off. Right? Like, hey, you want to make this big pivot, but you can only do online. Here's how we can help you. But here's also the things you may need to do on your own as well to make sure that it's worth it. But back to the internship question. So obviously, like you said, full time MBA, that is a core component of it, are full time accelerated, you have the option. And this is where we wrestled back and forth. And this is also where it gets probably slightly confusing, depending on a website. Right. So you can do our full time accelerated in twelve months. Three semesters in a row is three semesters of coursework. If you feel like you do not need an internship to go back into the workforce in the area that you want to do. So I. E those with small pivots. Right. Or something that you already know that you have a huge network in. If the internship is integral to what you want to do, making a huge pivot and, or, and let's say then this way. So for international candidates, we know that that's such a benefit of having someone that can have, in a way, we'll call that like the two job searches also to give a company an opportunity to test you out, because there are certain companies that they'll sponsor. They don't really care. It's a machine for them. But there are some that may be like, well, I don't know. Right. It's a lot of work for us because we don't sponsor a ton of candidates. So I'd really like to feel more confident that we want you in particular. So we wanted them to have that option, the online hybrid. We have an accelerated version there. Since there's no internship in the core program, there's no internship in the accelerated because you should be working full time.
• 15:53
  Speaker A: Right.
• 15:53
  Speaker B: But we try to keep that flexibility extremely high in the new accelerated version.
• 15:57
  Speaker A: Got it. So just to dive in a little bit on this accelerated MBA, if I wanted to do an internship, so I would start the program in September or in the fall, kind of. And then I could go through.
• 16:11
  Speaker B: They're all fall entries.
• 16:12
  Speaker A: Yeah. So I could go through the spring. And then it sounds like what you're saying, I could take a pause and do an internship over the summer and then do that final semester after the summer internship, basically in the fall.
• 16:24
  Speaker B: Right, correct. Okay.
• 16:26
  Speaker A: Got it. So, yeah, that's interesting.
• 16:27
  Speaker B: Yeah. We didn't want the start to change because we talked about that, because then we said, what's more important, having the group together or ending at a specific time? So we have one other program that really ends in December. It's our master of science in product management. We don't really have any issues there in terms of placement or starting with certain companies and everything. So we didn't think that that was as big of a factor. We brought a career center and talked about that, what we are telling candidates, because this is a timing issue and we all know. Right. And Graham, you've been doing this for a long time as well, right? 1015 years ago, everything started creeping earlier and earlier and earlier in that first year of an MBA, right? Like when internships are searching or starting and everything. So if anyone is up in the air or is strongly considering an internship, we want them to go into that accelerated format with that mindset because we don't want them to miss out on anything early because that's the worst feeling in the world. Right. You realize in, say, like December, hey, I want to do consulting. You're like, well, every firm was already here. Right. Like two months ago, and you kind of like, yes, you can still try. Right. But you've missed the boat on all the other things that everybody's been doing.
• 17:35
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 17:36
  Speaker B: So we want to make sure that that's a little bit more of the base case because it's always easier to say, hey, I already have a great job opportunity. I'm going to forego the internship. Right. And finish as quickly as possible. You can't turn back the time sometimes to go the other way.
• 17:50
  Speaker A: Right? Yeah. Okay. So that's helpful, though. I feel like I have a much better understanding of how the accelerated works and also just the context for all three of these flavors of the MBA at Tepper. Tell me a little bit about the services that you do provide across these programs. One of the things we were talking about was the accelerate leadership center. And you mentioned that earlier, I think. So tell me a little bit of. What is that?
• 18:13
  Speaker B: Yeah, let me tell you a little bit more of maybe, like, why. So obviously, we're always trying to do research, right. In terms of, and we'll call it like that end user who is the consumer of our product, of our students. So we always go out to those core companies that we're a strategic partner with and. Or we go to those alumni that are now leading, whether it's startup companies or Fortune 500 or Fortune hundred. Fortune ten. Right. Who in your organization is performing best and who's making a difference? What was really interesting for us is obviously problem solving, innovation. All those things were always there, but that seemed to always be like the table stakes, like everything across the board was always that. Those plus factors always came back to leadership and communication. Who can take something that's very complicated and explain it to many different stakeholders, who can have a brand new vision and then sell that not only to small teams, but to divisions of large companies and all these other things. So we realized very quickly that you needed to have that type of development if you continually wanted to put people in the market that wanted to climb that ladder and be in those positions, that you really needed to have that skill set. So that's really where it started. It has obviously evolved over time. The big thing that we do with most of our MBA candidates coming in now, actually, I think all MBA candidates, maybe not all Ms programs, is that we do the EQ assessment. Emotional intelligence is huge in terms, especially starting off in your MBA journey of managing teams and other people. So we wanted to make sure they have that skill set and again, then going through and figuring out what are the things that we need to do. The best way to explain this, maybe in the general sense, without going too in the weeds, is that, like the EQ assessment, there are certain things that we require of everyone that we feel like are again those foundational skills that everyone needs to have, but you can do individualized after that. So if it's something that you really want to develop within your MBA journey, you would then meet with one of our leadership coaches. All of them are certified coaches. We initially were kind of toying with a model where we had actual external coaches that were also working with our students. And we quickly realized we needed experts on those graduate business students, so we hired them in house. So you will go through what you want to develop, you'll go through that plan, and then they will set out, depending on the length of your program, what is that one or two year development plan of what you want to achieve, and then have those monthly meetings with you like you would if you were paying for an executive coach of I want to develop this. I went and they're going to give you examples of things you should go out and do to practice that. And then you come back and then you kind of debrief that and figure out, wow. So by the time you end, you can really then transform yourself into that leader or communicator that you're really aspiring to be. Wow.
• 21:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, I feel like it'd be nice to go back to business school because when I went, we didn't quite have this level of leadership training specifically. I mean, there was a leadership course I took in business school, but this idea of having a coach just sounds fantastic. So, as you know, I mean, you've been on the show before. Actually, our audience is primarily made up of prospective candidates, right, who are thinking about an MBA or in the throes of applying. And so one of the things I thought was interesting is you guys have this thing called chart your path, which helps people to figure out the answer to this question that you raised earlier, which is, how do you know, how do you choose between full time, traditional, accelerated, in person, online hybrid, all these possible paths? And so can you just tell me what is chart your path and how would someone go about using it?
• 21:52
  Speaker B: Yeah, this is where sometimes, maybe this will be one of the last times I bring up pandemic. Right. And what was a driving force for certain things. But when you have these things that really change how you do your work, as well as how maybe your candidates interact with you, you have to come up with something that you feel like, how do we still meet their needs and meet them where they are? So for us, this was a way of saying to others, if we could tell everybody how you should research a program to feel comfortable with. I'm choosing the right format, but not only that, but then also feel comfortable. Like, I feel like I can put in a very strong application now for this program. Once I found the right fit, that was the basis of this. So we created these steps. It was all online. And once you go through, and you can do it at your own pace, I have people that will complete this in, like, five days, and I have people that complete this over five months, because each step, it will tell you, like, oh, go and research this, or set up a meeting with a student ambassador or meet with an admissions team member or all these different things. Right. But it was to try to give everybody that opportunity to get the information they need. But then we also. Then the end, and we're like, okay, well, it's really cool. And I don't know if everyone's going to understand what is chart your path. So let's put a carrot at the end of it to ensure that people say, okay, I'm going to put another look here. So if you complete chart your path, you get an application fee waivers.
• 23:20
  Speaker A: Oh, wow. Okay. I didn't know that.
• 23:22
  Speaker B: So that's where we also want to incentivize everyone to do the right homework, because we also think you're going to be a more informed candidate for us. So it's going to be duly beneficial. The last thing I'll say with this, and this is, I think the difficulty of maybe our work now is that obviously as a global program, we're trying our best to make sure that every candidate can get the information they need. And you can't always have, for example, like a live info session that is at a time that is best for every time zone in the world. You can't have all the student conversations or bigger things. Right. So we can do some things at scale and some things we have to be able to do that people need to do their own research and then iterate from there. So chart your path was an option to really help with that.
• 24:08
  Speaker A: Okay, yeah, that makes sense. I feel like you're doing the work for the whole kind of graduate management education community in a way, because you're helping people to just answer some of these big questions that you read about in applying to business school books, kind of figuring out what are your goals, what's going to be the right type of program, all that stuff. So this seems really useful and if.
• 24:30
  Speaker B: That'S what it turns out to be, Graham, I am so proud that that's what it is. Because for all of us, right. And I would even say, because I want to be fair to all my colleagues, right. If you asked almost anybody else running another top MBA program, they would say the same thing. They want candidates to know what their process is, feel informed of it, but find that right fit. Because once you do find that right fit and you join that program, things are just going to click, right. You're going to be a phenomenal student. You're going to be a phenomenal alum. And no one really wants the student or the alum. That is just not a good fit for their community. It's not good for anybody.
• 25:02
  Speaker A: Right? Yeah, agreed. So I guess along these lines, you do something else, and I'm going to ask you to elaborate on it because I don't know enough about it. But you do these application workshops, right? So that's, I guess once someone has decided to apply, you have these application workshops, which I think is you and your colleagues kind of meeting with candidates and running them through the sort of key steps as they go through the admissions process. But do you want to just talk a little about that? Because it's also not super common. I mean, a lot of schools do info stash, but this seems a bit more hands on.
• 25:34
  Speaker B: No? So we do a lot of different things. And essentially, again, the basis is we want to make sure everyone feels like they can understand. I mean, we always talk about this right in top MBA programs. Like, can you go behind the curtain and really understand what people care about and everything? We try to bring everyone as much we can behind the curtain. What I will say with this is that we have that ethos and we try to figure out many ways of doing that. I think the thing that you're referencing in particular is that we even go to the lengths of trying to meet, sometimes even one on one with candidates and going through their overall profile and helping them maybe understand how they can put in their strongest application. Where that came from in particular, though, is I was at an even if everybody's not familiar with it, MLT is management leadership for tomorrow. It's an organization that helps prepare candidates for the MBA process in particular. I think they have a mission towards underrepresented populations. But I was at one of their initial seminars probably about three years ago now, and I was meeting candidates and they were doing kind of like a quick round robin, right? Like everybody had 10 minutes with a school rep and they would go over their intros and all these other things, and I'm hearing these intros and seeing resumes, and these are phenomenal candidates. Every school would be lucky to get candidates at this caliber. And the level of anxiety that these candidates had of like, do you think I'm going to get in anywhere? And I was just like, okay, we need to do something that not makes them cocky, right, but makes them confident enough that they feel like they can navigate the process in a good headspace and not be so worried about everything. And in some ways, that's how that was born. So when I went back to my team and I was like, okay, what do we need to do? Right, let's start macro at scale, and then let's take it down to as individualized as we can go now, obviously, and I'll say this because I know I said it to the world, right? We cannot do individualized meetings for every candidate that is interested in our program because we get thousands of applications a year. My team is, I mean, we have a good sized team, but we're not that big, right? So we try to offer that as much as we can. But I think the overall thing is, at any point of the process, we want to make sure that everyone can feel confident about what are we looking for as a school. How can you set yourself up for success to navigate our process and put together a strong application?
• 28:03
  Speaker A: Got it. It's funny you mentioned MLT because we did a show with the head of kind of admissions for MLT admissions into their program to help prepare, help candidates get the best out of applying to business school and everything. And so we learned a little bit about this. So it's great that they kind of inspired this offering on your end. I did want to ask you a little bit about a question that's probably more in the minds of international candidates, but I wondered, we were talking about accelerated traditional, and then your online kind of hybrid offering. Are your program STEM certified? And can you just share a little bit about what that means and why it's such a big benefit for internationals or anyone without us citizenship?
• 28:46
  Speaker B: Yeah, the answer is yes. So all of our full time programs are STEM certified. And I think what's interesting about this, though, right, is I think we already have a reputation, Cardi Mellon as a whole, right? We're quantitatively rigorous. The overall university has that STEM reputation as one of the best in the world. So in some ways, our approach to business is probably a little bit more stem than most other programs just from the get go. So I would say when everybody started to look at this years ago, and I'll tell the reason why here in a second, I think we probably had to change who we are a little bit less than most others to be able to get that certification. And also, just so everyone knows, the reason for this is when you go to school in the US as an international candidate, you have two different types of work authorization. You have CPT, cocurricular, essentially, which that is your internship. If your program requires an internship for everyone, everyone gets that. It's pretty straightforward. Opt. So optional practical training is after. And the base case for any degree level is twelve months.
• 30:00
  Speaker A: Right?
• 30:02
  Speaker B: For those that maybe also went to the US for an undergrad, you get opt for every degree level. So you do get twelve months for your master's level. If you are a STEM program, you can increase that with a 24 month stem extension. So you would get 36 months of work authorization, which essentially means if you're going to work with a company, that company can essentially put you into h one b lottery three different times. So instead of buying one lottery ticket, everyone gets three. And everybody feels a lot more comfortable that the likelihood is after three, you're more likely to get that, right. So the company isn't saying, okay, well, I'm going to train you up for a couple of years, and then you're going to be gone for something out of both of our control.
• 30:43
  Speaker A: Right?
• 30:44
  Speaker B: So it is definitely advantageous to do that. Now, I will say a couple of things here. One, you also have to get a job that is Stem eligible. Like, just because you go to a program that is STeM eligible does not mean that you automatically get it. So that is that last checkbox when you're going through that. The schools part of that process is saying, yes, we have made that decision. And actually, this is the other thing to say. Each school makes that decision if you are STem eligible, because we have to put in our own codes to the government system. So it's not like a government entity saying, we came in and reviewed your program and we're giving you stem authorization. Each school makes that choice for themselves.
• 31:24
  Speaker A: Okay, interesting. Yeah, I guess one of the things I'm thinking about is, in a nutshell, it sounds like any international can stay for a year and work after an MBA. But if it's a STEM program, like your programs are all Stem, they could stay for up to three years. But the job itself does have to be STEM certified as well, or whatever you would call it.
• 31:45
  Speaker B: The company has to be willing to sign off in saying that there is stem material within the requirements and the work of this role.
• 31:52
  Speaker A: Yeah, okay. That makes sense.
• 31:54
  Speaker B: Which, if you look at it now though, right? Consultants and most of the normal MBA type roles fit into this.
• 32:03
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 32:03
  Speaker B: Especially. And this is where the good news for everybody is, the evolution of what's going on within business and AI and other things. Probably just about every role could be stem eligible in the future.
• 32:15
  Speaker A: Yeah, I guess that ball started rolling even before with big data and things kind of really pushing things.
• 32:22
  Speaker B: And that's why. Right. It's easier in that way. And then just a clever. Because you mentioned this and I didn't say all the different programs yet, so we do have a master of science in management that is STEM certified, as well as our master of science in business analytics, as well as our two full time MBA formats. And. Sorry, and I almost forgot about the third MS program because I was thinking pre experience in my head at first. We have a master of science in product management that is a partnership with our school of Computer Science and other colleges here at Carnegie Mellon.
• 32:50
  Speaker A: Yeah. And that school of Computer Science is very well known, so I can see how that would be a really powerful combination.
• 32:56
  Speaker B: That helps.
• 32:57
  Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. You guys have a real kind of broad portfolio, and I'm hoping that by people tuning in, they've kind of figured out ways to narrow down what's right for them as opposed to maybe having too much on the table. But I feel like you've given some really great guidance here. Now, I did want to ask you, as I said before, people are applying to business school who are listening to this show. And so I'm just wondering, do you have any general application advice you'd like to impart? Because I know I've done panels with you and you always have really good kind of tips for people. So I'm just wondering, any advice you have for someone who's applying to Tepper or any top MBA program?
• 33:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, the advice I'll give today, because we'll call it a little bit more holistic, is that the best way to do this, is you need to do the personal reflection first. So what have you previously done? What do you want to do in the future? What have you liked? What have you not liked? What do you want that environment? Be like? As much reflection as you can, because the more you think through those things as then you start to research schools, you can start narrowing down and you have something to compare back to. But in terms of application advice, once you've done that and then you started doing this, the reflection also helps you think through, like, what do I want to share about myself? Right? Because after you find the right fits, now you're trying to think of like, okay, what do I want to share about myself? So they see the fit that I see. And some applications, when you look at it, right, everybody has different essay questions. Everybody has different flavors of things to be able for you to showcase yourself, but also what the school cares about. So what I would tell you is that once you get to that point of you're ready to apply and you want to think through, what are the things I want to share about myself? Think of the application as a book, right? Like, in the end, you want to have that complete story, but you can't have every complete story in one chapter of the book, right? Like, you can't have everything. Do you ever want to share about yourself on a short resume? You can't have it in one essay prompt. You can't have it in all these other things, right? So if you think through as you're completing that application and you think through. Okay, so I wanted to share this. All right, that's on the resume. I wanted to share this. I put that in my essay. I can't figure out where to put this one. Oh, but I have this recommender. Maybe I want them to highlight this piece of myself because I couldn't showcase it that somewhere else. Now, every school has a very different rule on this. You have the optional essay, right? Like that is the wild west of like, okay, is there that one really important thing that I wasn't really able to share about myself that I think is really relevant? You have an opportunity to put it there.
• 35:27
  Speaker A: Totally.
• 35:27
  Speaker B: Now, some schools will say, only use that for explaining some weird things in your application. But for the most part, I look at it like this. If it's important to you and you have an option to do it, put it in there. We read them all. I sometimes think the optional essays are some of the most interesting parts of the application just because it is so much of like, tell us anything that we don't know yet. Right?
• 35:49
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 35:49
  Speaker B: But to summarize that and bring it back, I mean, think about your story as a book, right? You can't tell everything that you ever want to say in every individual thing. And then lastly, and this is know that you then have that opportunity in that interview to clarify things. Right. In the application. You can put a teaser, right? Like, I couldn't fully tell this whole story, but I'm going to say something that I definitely want to talk about later. Need a storytelling venue to be able to really articulate it. That's my best advice.
• 36:18
  Speaker A: Okay. No, that's excellent. One of the things we do is, you probably know this. We run this series on clearadmit.com, which is called Real Humans, where we connect with current students and all the MBA programs, and we always ask for them to give us advice. And a lot of them do talk about how, while it was kind of a pain to apply to business school, that, that reflection piece that they did up front actually ended up being not only useful in terms of crafting an effective application, but just useful period for life. So I think you're given great advice, and I love this idea that, yeah, you've got a whole bunch of moving parts or pieces in the puzzle that you want to share, and you have all these different ways, whether it's the interview or the essay or the optional essay or the resume, et cetera. So great advice as always. I would expect nothing less from you, Jr. Appreciate you making time to talk through the different formats of the MBA over at Tepper, and also just some of these broader questions about how someone can find the right format for pursuing graduate management education. So, yeah, really appreciate your time today. Thanks for doing this.
• 37:18
  Speaker B: Awesome, Graham. It's always a pleasure. It's always, you know, a lot of times as we chat, I always forget the microphones there just because it's a really good conversation in between colleagues that just love what they do, so I really appreciate the opportunity.
• 37:30
  Speaker A: No, it was great having you on the show. So, everyone stay tuned. We got more episodes coming up every week, so we'll see you sooner.