Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 487: Simon vs Smeal. Haas vs Stern. Ross vs Sloan.

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MBA Wire Taps 487: Simon vs Smeal. Haas vs Stern. Ross vs Sloan. · 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, April 20, 2026. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. How are things going, Alex?
• 0:28
  Speaker B: Very good, thank you, Graham.
• 0:30
  Speaker A: So this week we've got a bunch of stuff. We've got deferred enrollment tips from Cornell Johnson and MIT Sloan. We've got real humans, alumni profiles from people working at Microsoft and Tesla, and even some real human students who are in LBs's new one year MBA. And of course, our usual group of candidates to discuss. But what's going on this week, Alex? Anything people need to know or have on their calendar for this week in kind of late April. So yeah, there's a bunch of deadlines, I'm guessing still.
• 0:59
  Speaker B: Well, there's still a few. I mean, SMU Cox has a deadline, Wharton has its deferred admissions, deferred enrollment deadline. So things are starting to wind down on that in that regard and decisions are going to be released. Keenan, Flagler, Sheller, Georgia Tech Sheller, and Oxford's side are all scheduled to release decisions this upcoming week too. So there's still some activity. But we haven't seen the bulk of the decisions release yet for round three or for that final rounds. But that's starting to happen. And the app deadlines were getting late in the season, no doubt.
• 1:41
  Speaker A: Yeah. And we talk about how the turnaround for round three is often really speedy because the admissions teams don't have as many files to read. So they can often turn interviews around in a couple weeks and decisions a couple weeks after that. So it's a tighter kind of timeframe. Best of luck to anyone who's maybe applied in some of these late rounds or is working towards getting some of those apps in. We'll see how it it goes. I wanted to mention we've still got our events. We're getting closer and closer to our big, big annual event. It's our in person NBA fair on May 11th in downtown Atlanta. It's being hosted by Georgia Tech Sheller. They have a new building that they're kind of opening up. It's, it's like parts of it are open and they're going to allow us to use it for this fair because we have, you know, we need, obviously, you know, an entity like clearadmit needs the absolute latest and greatest facilities to do this, so. But I cannot believe Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, mit, Chicago, Kellogg, I mean the list is long. All these schools are coming. It's going to be a lot of Fun. And I've been just having a blast putting together the panels because we have. It's not just like a fair where you walk around and talk to schools, although we'll have that component, but it'll also have panels. And so if you're within spitting distance of Atlanta and you're thinking about business school, you gotta come. And actually, if you know anyone who's in the Atlanta area, please let them know. Obviously, if you can't, we will do some virtual events towards the end of May, May 19, 20, 26 and 27, all at noon Eastern. We have, I think, 20 schools taking part in those events. A lot of top programs, so go to clearadmit.com events to sign up. I know I sound like a broken record because we talk about this every week, but this is our big month. I mean, May is always a really important time for us in terms of having these events. And we love to see prospective candidates come and join us and. Yeah, I can't wait for all this stuff.
• 3:27
  Speaker B: Yeah, kick off the new season.
• 3:29
  Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Over on the website, we have been running some articles, as you know, about deferred enrollment because there's some of these deadlines for deferred enrollment in, you know, kind of late April. And, you know, we just, we had a great event with a bunch of schools, so we pumping out these articles. We did one with Cornell and, you know, just some interesting advice we got from Chelsea over there in the admissions office at Cornell. And we, you know, we just kind of were asking, like, what kind of tips do you. And she said, it's funny, she said in the essay, sometimes candidates, we were asked about your plans, et cetera. She said sometimes that candidates miss out on connecting their plans and desires to the business school. So obviously, if you're applying to deferred enrollment, don't forget that you're going to be spending some time in the program and that when a school's asking you what you want to do, often they do want to understand how they fit into that picture. And she was kind of, she said, what we're looking for is how you intend to get involved and contribute to our community. She also recommended that you take an approach to this process with a mindset of at least three to five years and maybe even more like five to seven. So you really need to be able, as a young person in university, in most cases, to project out and think about, okay, what do I feel like doing after I graduate? What am I going to then do in the business program? And what's my goal after that. And I know that's really hard for people. And she said, I think I must have said that to her. And she said, if you need more time to explore and decide what experience would look like for you, what the experience would look like for you, ideally, then you might want to just think about holding off. She's saying, don't apply. If you don't know that the MBA is part of your future and you can visualize what it is you want to do. I think that's probably good advice. There's no risk in applying, but obviously if you don't know that the MBA is in your future, then it's hard to tell a compelling story. Right?
• 5:20
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, completely agree. Obviously, folks might want to apply to these deferred admissions programs to give them options in the future, and they're still not quite yet identified exactly what they want to do. The other point that I'd like to make though is, you know, there's no harm in really plotting and planning now for that future. And yes, clearly it becomes quite hypothetical and life changes things along the way, but as life comes about and changes those things along the way, you'll just be more deliberate about your shifting goals and desires and so on and so forth. So I, I really do think the, the, the, the notion of plotting and planning is, is really important. Even though the likelihood of you absolutely executing directly on what you've planned is, is. Becomes a little bit, you know, a little bit less likely in the long run.
• 6:25
  Speaker A: Sure, yeah. It's funny, Elliot, the co founder of Clear Admit and I, when we were kind of first getting Clear Admit going and things, he would always remind me that you got to kind of map out the future and set some goals and things, and that by merely setting those goals and thinking through, you are so much more likely to reach them, whereas if you just kind of fumble through, you're not going to. So, yeah, so setting a target is really helpful. Along those lines, we did a second piece about deferred enrollment, and this one was for MIT Sloan. And we caught up with Katherine Farrar. She had joined us for a session that we did, and she talked about why it's a good thing to do, deferred enrollment. And she basically says it's really great to have an offer in your back pocket during the next two to five years, she said, because this allows you to have more freedom to experiment in your career. So this idea that, hey, I know I'm going to go to Sloan, maybe I'll join a startup or I'm not doing everything in my career pre business school to hope that it lines up exactly perfectly with what would look good in an application. I can just really dive in and take some risks. Even if that startup crumbles and I'm out of the job market in six months and needing to pivot to something else. You can take those risks with an offer in your back pocket. And I think that's pretty important.
• 7:43
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's almost the counter to the advice of our previous person. That is, if you don't know that the MBA is in your future, you don't need to apply. But the value of applying is as, as, as your friend from Sloan said is having that option in your back pocket gives you more freedom to make choices.
• 8:04
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 8:05
  Speaker B: So, yeah, yeah, it's interesting. Very good.
• 8:07
  Speaker A: And the last thing she said is, you know, they have a video component to their application and, you know, we kind of asked what's, what's this for? And she said it's, it's really just to assess your communication skills in business. You're going to be thrown lots of questions, and how you respond and react to those is helpful for us to gauge because they have one of these. You kind of log in and you get thrown a question and you have to answer it. Right. So part of the application process is on video, but that makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, these are future business leaders. You want to see how someone might react because they're going to be someday sitting in a boardroom or at a press conference or getting questions thrown at them, ideally if they move up in the ranks anyway. So lots of good advice that I think some of which is applicable for, you know, traditional MBA programs, like how to get ready for the process and think it through. So the other thing I wanted to talk about this week, Alex, is we have more real humans. And then we'll obviously talk about our candidates for this week, which again, you picked out three Decision Wire candidates with pretty challenging dilemmas. So we'll get into those. But I first wanted to spotlight some of our real humans alumni. These are MBA grads from top programs working at top companies. So we start with Christina. She went to Tuck and is working as a product marketing manager at Microsoft. She's 32, originally from Lima, Peru, and she studied business administration at Universidad del Pacifico down there in Peru, I believe. And then she, you know, obviously went to Tuck. She focused on management science and quantitative methods. And she, prior to business school had worked as a consumer engagement manager at BellCorp, which is a direct to consumer beauty company in Latin America. She was there for a long time. She was there from 2014 to 2023. She's had a ton of experience, had really risen in the ranks and actually she talks in the article about how it was really kind of a difficult decision to leave because she had a career there and she could have stayed. Now she's at Microsoft. We asked her, why did you choose to attend business school? She said it was a really hard decision. I loved my job at Bell Corp. And I'm very close to my family back in Peru. However, I aspired to learn more about the intersection of business and technology. And pursuing an MBA felt like a good pivot point for me to step into the big leagues. I wanted to transition into the tech industry where innovation moves at a different pace. And I viewed the MBA as a way to intentionally challenge my way of thinking and expand my network beyond my Lima roots. So I thought that was pretty compelling as a reason to go off to business school. What about you, Alex?
• 10:46
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely brilliant. I think get out of your comfort zone, really challenge yourself and get on the edge of where business is transforming into the future. So, yeah, that kudos for making what is a huge leap of faith. Right. Making those big decisions and seemingly they're paying off. Right. Microsoft is one of the biggest tech companies, is on the edge of developing our future.
• 11:13
  Speaker A: Yeah. And what's fascinating to me is from Lima, Peru to Hanover, New Hampshire. So I got to read you what she said when we asked her why Tuck? And she says, now I get it. But at the time I was genuinely impressed by how much Tuckies loved their experience. So I think she's saying she was like, wow, these people really are drinking the Kool Aid and loving it here. And now she gets it that she's there. But she said every alum I spoke with was obsessed with Tuck and now I'm one of them. She says practically, I wanted to get into a good school that cared about international students and secured job placement for that. I think Tuck's employment reports are self explanatory. However, the reason I chose Tuck was more personal. Since I was coming from abroad, I got drawn to the truly close knit community. I knew that leaving my family and friends was going to be tough. So I placed a lot of value on attending a school where I could build long lasting relationships. And that proved to be 1000% accurate. The network transcends the years and goes far beyond the classroom. In any event. I just thought it was really heartwarming to hear because I really? See, it was a big decision for her to leave her company, to leave her country and then to land. And you sometimes think that international students gravitate towards, I want to go to business school in New York City or a big school. Big city, because they're having their American experience. But she went in a very different direction and I think you can see why that's quite appealing in this instance.
• 12:37
  Speaker B: Yeah. And she's a huge cheerleader for Tuck, no doubt about it.
• 12:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, totally.
• 12:41
  Speaker B: Fantastic.
• 12:42
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So in any event, I want to. There's another candidate that we have, another real human, and this is Lakshya from wharton, class of 23. And this candidate is a business, sorry, finance and business operations manager at Tesla. So Laksha is 33, originally from New Delhi, India, went to one of the Institute of Technology, I guess at Delhi University, studied manufacturing and automation engineering and before business school had worked as an associate at Bain Co. For a few years actually, but also as an associate at the Clinton Health Access Initiative for a few years. I think a total of 6 years of experience before going to business school. Obviously they've now been at Tesla working for I guess about three years. Lots of experience from really good companies on their resume. And we just asked, what's one piece of advice you wish you'd been given during your mba? This is something we hear a lot of, but I thought it was worth underlining. Here's what they said. They said, go in with intentionality around your professional and personal goals and stay grounded in who you are so you can make thoughtful choices about how you spend your time. That said, remain open to exploration and surprise. Some of my most meaningful friendships emerge from experiences I was initially hesitant about. Recalibrate regularly and keep striving for balance between diving deeper into what you know and stepping into the unknown with curiosity. So what do you think of that?
• 14:21
  Speaker B: Yeah, fantastic. And I have to wonder how he landed that role at Tesla. Do they do on campus recruiting Tesla or have you got to self initially initiate that connection even at a school like Wharton?
• 14:34
  Speaker A: You know, I'm not certain I do know. I see the name, you know, I see Tesla on the list of most of the recruiting reports these days, which, which is kind of funny because, you know, I think Elon Musk famously had said he didn't see any reason to hire an mba, but clearly that's maybe not the case. So in any event. But yeah, I don't know if they do structured like on campus recruiting, but I definitely see a lot of the top school setting some Folks their way.
• 14:58
  Speaker B: And he obviously had a really interesting profile for Tesla because he's got the engineering chops, he's got the consulting chops, got the automation chops, etc. Etc. And Tesla, you know, whatever you, you think of Musk and I have some very strong opinions about him personally. But, but you've got to admire companies like Tesla and SpaceX etc, really pushing the boundaries of, you know, where things are going.
• 15:28
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 15:29
  Speaker B: In the, in the future. And if, you know, we need to bet on Tesla, we need to bet on Waymo, otherwise China automation is just going to rule the world. There's no doubt about that in my mind. So yeah, not there's anything wrong with that, I don't want folks to think. But, but it's a really interesting geopolitical.
• 15:49
  Speaker A: Oh yeah.
• 15:50
  Speaker B: Battle right now, as it were, in terms of who wins the automation race and China is currently winning the robotic piece of that in my mind.
• 16:01
  Speaker A: Yeah. And we see, you know, I'm seeing more and more of those, what is it, byd, build your dreams cars all over Europe and I think, you know,
• 16:09
  Speaker B: Tesla, Tesla also has the Optimus. Right. So outside of just automated vehicles, they've got the, the humanoid.
• 16:17
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 16:17
  Speaker B: And that's where I think that they're lagging behind China and the. To sort of catch up a little bit. So. Yeah, interesting.
• 16:25
  Speaker A: Yeah, very interesting stuff. The last thing I wanted to chat about before we talk about, I'm saying
• 16:28
  Speaker B: all this, Graham, because I'm so super smart now because I do some work for Stanford.
• 16:32
  Speaker A: Right, right, I forgot about that. Yeah, you did say that last week, I think so. One last thing I wanted to share is we did a Real Human Students where we profiled six current students at London Business School's one year accelerated mba which is a new program. So these I believe are the first batch of students in this program because it just started last fall. We connected with them as part of our Real Human series. Normally we do those in the fall, but because this is a new program, we got to it a little bit later and it's a one year experience. It was really interesting though. There are six students profiled and one of the ones I wanted to share is this guy named Carl who worked at Cloudflare and New Relic and a bunch of these key, I don't know, Internet infrastructure kind of type companies. Before going to business school, his goal with going to business school is to pivot into venture capital with a focus on AI. We did ask him, why did you go to LBs? Because he's American. Although he also, I think has Danish citizenship. But here's someone who I think was in the States prior. He said why LBs? And I was kind of curious about why one year and he gave three reasons. He said, number one, global density. LBs feels like the crossroads of Europe, the US, the Middle east and Asia. That matters to me personally. I'm American and Danish, grew up in France and have always worked in global teams. Number two, proximity to capital. If you're serious about venture, private equity or corporate development, London is a compelling ecosystem. And number three, the one year format. I valued the accelerated structure as it attracts people who are more intentional. Many of them come with strong prior experience and clear goals. And this has proven to be just the kind of focused peer group I hoped for. That was kind of interesting to hear and it makes a lot of sense, but you never know. This is kind of a newer program for LBs and we actually did a webinar not too long ago with a couple of people from LBS about it. But yeah, it's just interesting to hear the experiences and he sounds like he's having a blast.
• 18:39
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think that first point he made is absolutely on point in terms of a program like LBS being the melting pot or whatever you want to call it, of nationalities and geographies from all around the world. So absolutely fantastic. What is the criteria for applying? Because not everyone can apply to this program. Right?
• 19:00
  Speaker A: Yeah. So that's the thing you have to have. I think you have to have a master's in business, like a master's in management or I think they might take some people if you have a master's in finance. But yeah, you got to show, essentially what you need to do is show that you could waive the core curriculum. I mean, that's really what it comes down to, right? I mean, they give you. There are a bunch of classes that you'll take that are required still, but you've got to show that you have those business chops in terms of. And that may change with time. We've seen schools introduce these programs and then say, well, if you're an undergraduate business major, but for now you got to have a master's level business degree on your. On your resume too.
• 19:35
  Speaker B: Very good.
• 19:36
  Speaker A: All right, so if you want to write to Alex and I write to infoearadmit.com use the subject line wiretaps. Otherwise, Alex, you picked out three candidates from decision wire entries and I think we should talk about them.
• 19:47
  Speaker B: Let's kick on.
• 19:48
  Speaker A: All right, so this is WireTaps Candidate number one. Our first candidate this show has applied to a bunch of schools. I mean they applied to Boston, Austin, you know, questrom. They applied to University of Edinburgh, Georgia Tech, Scheller, Indiana, Kelly, Minnesota, Carlson, Ohio State, Penn State, Rochester, UC Irvine and University of Maryland Smith. And they don't have all their answers yet, but they wanted to kind of check in with us because they've already been accepted to Penn State. They've also been accepted to Rochester with what looks like maybe a 60% scholarship. And they have an admit from Purdue Daniels they said, which is a one year MBA as well. I guess that wasn't on our list to choose from. So that's why they're telling us that separately. And they're waiting on, you know, they've had interviews at questrom, Kelly, Mirage, which is UC Irvine and also Georgia Tech and Carlson, Minnesota. So they're still kind of waiting on some things, but they're kind of wondering what we think they should do. And they've been working as an IT project manager for three plus years. Their undergraduate degree was computer science and they want to do a tech focused MBA and they would like to pursue a career as a technical product manager in the future. This candidate's from India. They listed their GPA as a 3o. I'm guessing that's converted from the Indian system. And so it may be a little bit better than it looks. But yeah, what do you make of this? Because you know, obviously, obviously now as I'm reading this I'm like, oh, there are a couple of tech focused MBAs, like explicitly at NYU and Cornell Tech, but they didn't apply to either of those. But there must be a reason. Maybe it's their numbers or maybe they didn't think they could get into some of these top programs, but they're kind of scattering apps across the top 30, 35. And yeah, some results. But yeah, what do you think they should do?
• 21:40
  Speaker B: I mean they want to do a tech focused mba, as you said, they didn't really apply to some of the ones that are more renowned. But I would also argue that most top MBA programs, so if we talk about top 30, that's still top MBA programs have strong focus on tech. Yeah, I mean you can offer an MBA program if you don't have an AI strand of that, if you don't have a strong tech focus. So I, if I was them, I would almost remove that piece of it from the equation in terms of where they make their final decisions. I would look at, you know, where these schools are ranked, what tiers they're in and so on and so forth. So to me, in terms of what they've got already, Simon, Rochester, Simon with Dollars seems to be their better option. And because it's two year and I know they've already gotten into a one year program because it's two years, it gives them more, more opportunity to do an internship, which is super important for most NBA candidates anyway. So I think Simon's a good option. They obviously haven't got final decisions yet from Shallow and from Kelly, both of which probably would be slightly better options, maybe in a tier slightly above Simon. And again, if they do get opportunities at Shallow, Georgia Tech. Tech Shallow, that sounds very good. And Indiana Kelly, they're probably going to have already deposited at Simon. So I think that was a piece of their other question that they had.
• 23:28
  Speaker A: Oh yes.
• 23:28
  Speaker B: What should they do now if they're waiting for decisions later? It's like you've got a deposit now at your best option and you can step away from that deposit and deposit somewhere else later if you've got a better option. Obviously that's a little bit costly, but that's typically how candidates would handle that situation.
• 23:50
  Speaker A: Yeah. So there are a few things that I want to discuss about this candidate. The first is, like you said, they don't know all the answers yet. And so they're going to need to make it like if they have to put in a deposit at Rochester, they just have to do it. And that's obviously, ideally they would have applied to everywhere in the same round or all these decisions would be correlated and they wouldn't have to do this. But I think they're going to have to snatch up one of the options that they've been given. They could ask the school whether they could. You can always ask. You could write to the school and say, hey, I'm so thrilled to be admitted. I'm waiting on a couple of other decisions. I'm wondering if there's any flexibility with this deadline. They may say no and then you make the deposit and you have to be willing to walk away from it. But obviously walking away from a few thousand dollars when you're making several hundred thousand dollars decision, arguably I wouldn't let that determine where you go. One of the things I was going to ask you though is, you know, this candidate is from India. Okay. They've been working presumably in India. I mean, they don't say, but I kind of wonder if, you know, should they be doing a two year program? Is that kind of where this needs to go? Would they be better off doing like having that summer internship. So coming from India, I just kind of wonder. Doing an accelerated program may not actually serve them that well. It depends what they're trying to do, if they're looking to break into the American market, et cetera. So that's another consideration. But I think for now they probably, as you say, deposit at Rochester and await word to see if Kelly at Indiana or Scheller at Georgia Tech come through. Because those would trump, I think, an offer from Simon. But yeah, so that's kind of where I land on this.
• 25:39
  Speaker B: I think we completely agree.
• 25:41
  Speaker A: Yeah. All right, sounds good. Let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two. So our second candidate this week applied to Berkeley, Haas, Kellogg, Stern, Stanford and UCLA. And they did so with a 3.94 GPA and a 665 GMAT. That equates to like probably around a 710 on the old school, old scale. In case you're a little lost on that, they're located in Los Angeles, California. They ended up getting admitted to Stern, no money. Berkeley, also no scholarship dollars, and ucla, Anderson, where they were given a hundred thousand dollar scholarship. They talked about how they were denied without interview at both Kellogg and Stanford. And they thought that, they say, I thought my low quant score on the GMAT was going to hold me back along with my non traditional background in entertainment. Really glad I decided to just go ahead and focus on crafting my story and my why mba. I think that made the difference for me. So they have these offers and they said that they are a film school graduate from USC and they're currently working at a digital media startup in operations and they're hoping to use the MBA to pivot into a bigger company like a YouTube or a Meta or a TikTok in a kind of strategy or business development role. They said that they, for them they're deciding between Haas and Stern. So they for some reason have ruled out UCLA and that hundred thousand dollar scholarship. They're focusing on Haas or Stern and they're thinking that Haas has good connections in entertainment and tech in San Francisco and a great culture fit for them. Stern has more direct connection to traditional entertainment companies, they say. And they're thinking about, you know, should they do a consulting internship as a way to land a job in strategy post mba. Is Stern maybe better for that than Haas? They're not really sure. And you know, they're trying to negotiate a little bit with Haas for scholarship as well. So they wanted our thoughts. There's a lot going on here, Alex, but What do you make of their decision?
• 27:47
  Speaker B: Yeah, to me I thought the decision would be between Anderson and Haas.
• 27:53
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 27:53
  Speaker B: Anderson, because they got the 100k, they're from LA, they've obviously got a lot of familiarity there and has, because it's also on the west coast, more tech focus potentially right there up there, sort of access to Silicon Valley and so forth. So I'm a bit surprised that they've eliminated Anderson and it's between Stern and Haas. So that to me would put Hass in front because I think Haas really fits the type of student. This is the sort of background they're coming from and so on and so forth. But I can understand, you know, Stern, if they want a New York experience, I would try to think long run, like geographically, where do they want to be? I think that's super, super important and will be the defining sort of piece of the puzzle. If they can they really imagine themselves being on the east coast for the long run piece of their career. If they're like, you know what, in five years time I want to be able to come back to the west coast and yeah, that's where my family is, that's where I want to settle, etc. Etc. Then I think it's Hass or as I suggest, Anderson. So unless they feel that they can commit to wanting to be on the east coast, long run, that would be my thing. And I would also make the point that whilst they're a bit concerned about their GPA and their non traditional profile, having a 3.94 GPA is pretty amazing.
• 29:27
  Speaker A: Yeah, agreed. I mean, I think, you know, one of the things here. So I have two thoughts on this candidate. The first is that it's funny because they did pretty well. They got into some of the schools they applied to, not, not all of them, but they did pretty well. And they were kind of saying it's because they did a great job telling their story. And I have no doubt that that's the case. But they did have that great gpa. I can't help but wonder if they had retaken the GMAT and pushed that score up closer to the average at the top schools they were targeting and maybe with a stronger quant component they might have been still sitting on, maybe they would have gotten to more schools, but I think at minimum they might be sitting on dollar offers that they don't have right now because obviously Stern and Haas gave them no money. I think that's one thing I don't want to, I don't want listeners to come away Thinking, oh, yeah, you can just kind of tell a great story and you'll get in. But there are sometimes consequences to that. So they still got in, but they didn't maybe get as much scholarship as they could have had they retaken the test. Anyway, just a sidebar comment there as to what they do. I think, yeah, this comes down to where they want to be. Like, you're saying, could they envision a career in New York long term, or do they want to be on the West Coast? And it's interesting because they're talking about YouTube and Meta, and those are companies that are based on the West Coast. If they were saying, oh, I want to do a media career, and I'm really interested in NBCUniversal or Paramount or Fox. These have headquarters in New York City, and so that would be a different story. I lean towards Haas or Anderson with $100,000, and maybe Haas will come in with some money and that'll bridge the gap because Haas does typically rank above Anderson. So you would go even with a little less money. But in any event, yeah, there's a lot going on here. But they're really compelling. I mean, it sounds like a compelling candidate who's going to be a great addition to whichever class they choose to join because they have an interesting background in film and new media and stuff. So very good stuff. I do want to thank them for sharing their decision dilemma. Hopefully we've helped. But let's move on and talk about our wiretap candidate number three. So our final candidate for this week, Alex, has applied to Berkeley, Michigan, MIT, Stern and Yale. They applied with a 329 on the GRE and a 3.7 GPA. This candidate's located in New York City. They ended up getting into a lot of these schools. So they got into Michigan with $100,000 scholarship. They got into MIT, no scholarship there. Berkeley Haas admitted them with a $30,000 scholarship, and Yale has come in with a $50,000 scholarship. They said that cost of attendance is a big factor. So leaning toward Ross with that hundred thousand dollars. But I feel crazy turning down mit. I'm interested in tech sustainability, climate, climate as a career. So this is interesting, Alex. I mean. Yeah. What do you make of these results?
• 32:26
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, obviously with their goal focus, you know, you would probably say Sloan Trump's house trumps Ross, and Sloan's probably a really good opportunity for tech, sustainability and climate. I understand folks being Dataverse, but you're also being. And you know, we talk about risk tolerance, right? So they have Less risk tolerance because they want to go to the program that's offering them the most money and we'll offer them some access to their career goals. There's no doubt about that. Ross is very good program. So it will be able to provide them some access and so forth. But the reality is Sloan will be able to provide them more access. Even Haas might provide them more access. And so therefore there's a risk on that side of the spectrum. Right. They're risking not getting their ideal opportunity to go to a school that's going to, you know, make it, you know, financially more viable in the short run. So I think there's risks both ways on how they make this decision. Greg?
• 33:45
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's tricky. I think you're, you know, but you're making a really interesting point, which is, if I were this candidate, I would do some really serious digging into how are these programs, what are they doing when it comes to tech sustainability climate, what are the placement stats, what are the campus clubs, what's the level of activity? Because I think you're right in pointing out that Sloan is going to be really good at this stuff. Berkeley has a bit of a reputation in this space. I think even Yale does, which also admitted them, remember, with a $50,000 scholarship. This is an interesting dilemma. I do think there's been this strange tendency towards candidates who, I guess I can understand business school is expensive, but it's almost like someone needs to do a better job of spelling out the math here in terms of what happens when you borrow the money. And we did an episode on the podcast with the founder of Juno to talk about student loans and I had him go through, well, what happens if you borrow this much money and how much are you really looking at paying back and for how many years after business school? That was super helpful, but I think for one reason or another, there's this tendency towards a fear of taking loans. And yeah, I don't know, I mean, it could be worth asking MIT if there's any flexibility there. But yeah, I mean, obviously they could go to one of these other schools. These are all fantastic schools, but I would encourage them to really do their due diligence.
• 35:04
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think one of the problems though, Graham, is it's very transparent and very obvious in terms of financially, in the short run, the impact of going to Ross over Sloan. Whereas what's not as transparent and obvious is what is the impact of choosing Ross over Sloan from the middle and longer run career outcomes.
• 35:29
  Speaker A: Yeah, right.
• 35:30
  Speaker B: Which could obviously, you know, manifest in better opportunities at a much higher level of impact. I mean, salary might be a wash, but maybe it's impact that they want to, they want to focus on and so on and so forth. And you've got to imagine a school like Emma, it is doing some really interesting stuff in this area, as you said. Also Berkeley, potentially Yelp. So anyway, the point is, I think it's just easier for candidates to understand a very short run cost advantage over the more difficult way of calculating the career advantage.
• 36:11
  Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And someone, I think it was maybe another episode or two back where someone was talking about, hey, just because you want to work in industry A doesn't mean that you might not be dependent on people who are in industry B to help you there. So you're not interested in private equity, but you might need some people in that domain who can help you to get into a new climate company or whatever it is. Right?
• 36:32
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 36:33
  Speaker A: So anyway, yeah, lots of good debates. I love when you pick these out because there's so many different angles that one can debate about this and hopefully we help shed some light. I want to wish everyone the best of luck as they make these decisions. Obviously it's always great to be in the position to be selecting between multiple schools and scholarship dollars. So congrats to everyone who's got all these. Good decision, Alex. Let's do this all again next week if you're willing. And yeah, thanks again for all your help.
• 36:57
  Speaker B: Very good. Stay safe everyone. Take care.