Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 449: 331 GRE, Tokyo goal. 2.76 GPA, can it be overcome. 335 GRE from Pakistan.

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MBA Wire Taps 449: 331 GRE, Tokyo goal. 2.76 GPA, can it be overcome. 335 GRE from Pakistan. · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:17
  Speaker A: Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm Graham Richmond and this is your Wiretaps for Monday, September 29, 2025. Emory University's full time MBA powers growth in your career, your leadership and your future. Built on a foundation of cross functional problem solving, leadership development and career readiness, this top 20 MBA program delivers a high return on investment with top five career outcomes. Step into a global network that's connected by design and supportive by nature. Explore the Emory MBA at Emory Biz ClearAdmit. That's Emry Biz ClearAdmit. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, how are things this week?
• 0:59
  Speaker B: Very good, thank you, Graham.
• 1:00
  Speaker A: So these are crazy times. You want to run through some of the what's going on deadlines wise. And I know we're starting to see interview invitations for round one. So what's up?
• 1:09
  Speaker B: Yeah, we were holding our breath last week to see when Yale interview invites were going to start rolling out. They did. Right on cue.
• 1:16
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 1:16
  Speaker B: So that was very good. We've seen obviously interview 5 coming out for Kellogg and some other programs, also Duke Garden and so forth. So those sort of early applications in round one or early action. And we're seeing interview invites and we have a busy week next week with round one application deadlines.
• 1:41
  Speaker A: Oh, wow.
• 1:42
  Speaker B: So I'll just read very quickly. I mean, Sloan is coming up next week, so we know that's towards the end of the. The real top programs for round one deadlines. But there's several other programs next week and in subsequent weeks. So Fuqua, Tepper, Darden, Anderson, Goizata, McDonough, Foster, Owen, Scheller, Smith, Carlson, all have round one deadlines next week.
• 2:09
  Speaker A: Oh, wow. Okay.
• 2:11
  Speaker B: Sade has its stage two. Oxford side, I should say, has its stage two application deadline. So yeah, we're in the thick of. Thick of it in terms of round one.
• 2:25
  Speaker A: Yeah. And you know, never to be. I mean, there's never a dull moment. I mean, obviously the administration made their announcement about H1B visas, which has an impact on the NBA community, obviously. So this has been, I mean, just a kind of crazy period. I actually made a little video that's probably already on the Internet somewhere talking about that. And we talked a lot about H1BS in our recent Ask Me Anything when we did our YouTube livestream. Alex, we're going to do another live stream in October on the 28th. It's a Tuesday as usual. We try to do them on the fourth Tuesday of each month at noon Eastern. And you can sign up by just following our YouTube stream, that's @bit Lee ca YouTube live. But Alex, what'd you think of the live stream? And yeah, are you excited we're going to do another one?
• 3:09
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm curious actually whether we should step it up and maybe do it every second Tuesday, but I don't know that yet. So right now our cadence is every fourth Tuesday of the month. We've only run two of them, but for both of them I've really enjoyed them. The quality, the questions, I think are really on point and it also gives us a chance to really understand what those questions are. So we're live, engaging, responding, et cetera. So far we've only run two of them, but small audiences, but really rich questions. And when I say small audiences, I think our second live stream probably doubled the audience from the first. So I'm just wondering if we start to do them a little bit more often and get in the thick of it, more folks will start tuning in.
• 4:02
  Speaker A: Yeah, I always felt like you and I had faces for radio, but apparently the live streaming is working too, so we'll keep at it. But in any event, no, I had a really good time. And shout out to if anyone's tuned into the podcast, shout out to those who ask questions because were some really good, good questions and that's what fuels the discussion. Other events, news. I don't have any links for folks yet, but we have a bunch of stuff coming up. In October, we're going to restart our Real Humans series of webinars where we get alums from and current students from top schools. And they do sort of roundtable, kind of ask me anything stuff with the audience that'll be fun. There's some really great students and alums participating from top schools. Then we have a special series for undergrads that's a deferred enrollment. So for those business schools that allow undergrads to apply in their senior year and lock in a spot in the MBA program, we're gathering all those top schools, you know, the Whartons and Chicago's and you know, a lot of these schools that offer the deferred enrollment option. Those webinars are coming up. And then the last thing we're doing, which we tried last year with such success that it's coming back in a big way this year, which is we're going to do these what I'll call like regional webinars where we'll do like California MBA programs and then we'll do a Great Lakes edition and a mid atlant or Southeast or. I can't remember all that. I think there's a New England one. And so these are where we just gather schools that are in the same geographic region and talk a lot about, like, what are the benefits of studying in that region, the careers available, et cetera. So should be fun. Mike on our team runs those, and we'll get you more details as those are finalized. But that's all coming up in the weeks and months ahead.
• 5:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, but don't be skipping the webinars you've just hosted. Graham, I know you had a really good MBA Insider webinar series just that has just wrapped up.
• 5:55
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 5:56
  Speaker B: And our last programs that were featured included INSEAD and LBs, Hass, Keenan, Flagler, and Ross.
• 6:05
  Speaker A: Right.
• 6:06
  Speaker B: Any nuggets of insight from that particular webinar?
• 6:09
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it was. So first of all, yeah, I had a great time over the last few weeks doing those. And we did three of them. So we talked to like, 15 schools. And this past week was a lot of fun. I think. I'm trying to think of some big nuggets that came out of it. I mean, one thing that was interesting is that, you know, I learned that INSEAD does these two interviews, which I knew about, but they do two interviews. If you get. If you're invited, you have to have two. But something that Jennifer from INSEAD shared with us is that you get one female and one male interviewer. You also get one interviewer that's likely to be younger, kind of a recent grad, and one interviewer that's likely to be a more seasoned kind of veteran. You know, kind of someone's been out in the workforce for 10 years or something. And I didn't know that. And the reason that she said they do that is not just to give the candidate some exposure to different folks, but also because they want to try to eliminate some bias. So they, you know, male, female, older, younger, they're just trying to make sure they're getting a really good variety of, you know, kind of viewpoints on the candidate. So I thought that was kind of interesting. And, you know, the other thing that stood out to me is all of these schools are using video now and like, timed video where you don't have a lot of chance to script it or, you know, they're trying to get around the sort of chatgpt phenomena. So that was standing out to me as well.
• 7:25
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, fantastic. And. And I know I look at the transcripts and so on and so forth. I know LBS talked a little bit about how their interview can go on for hours.
• 7:35
  Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. An hour and a half, two hours. Theirs are with alums as well. And they have that special presentation that you have to do in the middle of the interview that they. They talk. It was Alessandra from, from LBS who joined us this time. And yeah, she was terrific at kind of pulling back the veil on that along. That had long been kind of a bit of a secret, you know, that you have this little presentation within the interview. But now that's out of the cat's out of the bag, thanks to our events, I guess.
• 8:01
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, but I guess my bigger point is not all interview experiences are the same. So really it's just so important to understand how that each of the individual schools their interview formats and so on and so forth.
• 8:16
  Speaker A: Yeah, totally.
• 8:17
  Speaker B: So, yeah, absolutely. Fantastic.
• 8:19
  Speaker A: Yeah. So, other stuff I want to check in on before we talk about this week's candidates. We, we continue to roll out our real human series of content where we connect with current students in the class of 27. So these are, you know, students who've just started. I'm sorry, class of. Yeah, 27. Yeah. So their first years. So we caught up with students at NYU Stern this past week and one of them, this woman named Beril, she is 29 years old from Istanbul, Turkey. And you know, she, she studied industrial engineering and sociology as an undergrad and then went to work as a brand marketing specialist for N in Istanbul. Did that for four years before business school. And she just had. I read her interview and you know, there were like I think six students that we profiled from Stern. Hers jumped out at me just, she gave a bunch of really good kind of advice and nuggets. So I'm going to read you a few quotes from her. Her first is about the test. She says, don't try to study for the GMAT and write your application essays at the same time. If I could do it again, I would first prepare for the test and maybe draft outlines for the essays. Once I'd achieved my target score, I'd shift my full attention to essays with enough time to allow for self reflection. And then she says cut back on time spent reading through GMAT forums and set up a study routine that you stick with. After refreshing my memory on the quantitative part, the best thing I did was jump into it and take as many timed practice tests as possible. So those are her kind of admissions tips, which I thought were good. And she also offered just one comment about the Stern community that I wanted to share. She said, the culture and community at NYU Stern have exceeded all my expectations. From the moment we walked in, it's been clear that the program is designed to build a community. Everyone's genuinely invested in one another's success, ready to collaborate and support each other along the way. So we know that about Stern, but it's nice to hear it from a first year student who's just, you know, kind of begun their journey. But what do you make of her advice and thoughts?
• 10:21
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think the advice and thoughts is really interesting. How to structure managing the GMAT test as well as the application process itself with the essays and so on and so forth. I think that's terrific advice, quite honestly. And maybe as, you know, as a company, we focus less on this test prep stuff. So picking up these nuggets from those that actually go through the process, I think is, is really, really, really helpful.
• 10:51
  Speaker A: Yeah, I do think, I mean, what that one piece of advice she gave about taking full length timed tests is so important. I mean, the more that you do that, the more you're ready for game day. Because the test is a bit of a marathon and I think some people, where they fall down is that they, oh, I did a math section here, I did a verbal section there. But when you have to do them both back to back and you know, under that time pressure, it's really challenging. So carving out time at the weekend to do that is important. But yeah, so there.
• 11:16
  Speaker B: Do you, do you still have fond memories of your, your test prepping, Graham?
• 11:21
  Speaker A: No, I have terrible, terrible memories of. It's traumatic, you know. No, but I, I, yeah, I did a lot of prep because I didn't do well the first time I took the test. And so then I had to, yeah, kind of restart and I, yeah, it took me quite some time. I put in several months to do the gmat. So that was, yeah, not fun, but the result was worth it.
• 11:38
  Speaker B: And what was your second score?
• 11:40
  Speaker A: 750.
• 11:41
  Speaker B: That is.
• 11:42
  Speaker A: This test is different. Yeah, but the test is different now. So they have a different SCOR system. But yeah, I had a good result. Yeah. Speaking of all that, Wharton has shared their class profile for the year. And so that's the class of 27. And so they have, you know, 888 students enrolled. They had 7,613 applications that yielded those 888 students last year, in case you're curious, there were 866 students. So they grew the class a little bit. And also last year they had fewer applications, 7,322. So they had, you know, increased application volume and a slightly larger class size. I think a lot of people accepted their offer. Must be what happened. Average undergraduate GPA unchanged 3.7. They had average test score of 735 on the legacy GMAT. That's up three points from last year. And they had an average GMAT focus score of 676. They I don't think they reported that last year. So I don't have a change there. GRE and Quantum Verbal were 163. Quant 162 verbal. Those are unchanged from last year. They did lose a step in women. They're down to 44%. That was 47% last year. And they have 26% international students. That's down 5% from last year. Average work experience five years. So any thoughts on Wharton's class profile for this year?
• 13:13
  Speaker B: You had a higher GMAT score than their average. Graham, that is fantastic. It wasn't something else, huh?
• 13:19
  Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know why I got in. I mean it was probably just the test.
• 13:22
  Speaker B: Yeah, well I tell you, your 750 GMAT does hold up well when it's above the average of the very best schools on the planet. So. Yeah, so. So yeah. But for war. I mean I do like the fact that they've actually now are publishing the what you call legacy test average score and the current test average score because this is the first time we've seen this, I think across any school. So for this season, and I expect to see more and more of this, presumably other schools are going to be doing the same thing. Women slightly down, International slightly down potentially. I'm not saying concerning but something to keep an eye on to see if those trends persist across other schools. But you know, Wharton's, Wharton, these statistics just show that this is a real high caliber class coming in.
• 14:22
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I think they did really well overall. I will say I peaked at. So these career or sorry, class profiles have been coming out now and they've been coming out fast and furious once the floodgates opened. And so you know, we've seen, I've seen, had my eyes on the profiles at ucla, Cornell, Georgetown and I'm not going to share all the stats on those but UCLA showed very good stats really similar to last year. They actually upped their percentage women versus last year. So that is a little different than Wharton. That went down a bit on women. But I will say the test score at UCLA dropped that GMAT average dropped by 11 points. And they also saw fewer international students with a 6% drop, very similar to that drop we saw at Wharton of 5%. So there's something going on probably related to White House policies and global instability and things maybe lowering that international application volume. I will say Cordell's bucking that trend. I peaked at their profile. They went from 35% to 42% international. So they're going against the grain there. But I suspect we're going to see this as we talk about more class profiles over the course of this fall here. We'll see how they all come in.
• 15:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, and it'd be interesting to see if we can decipher whether it's less internationals admitted or the yield on internationals dropped because of the visa issues and so forth. I would suspect it's more the latter than the former, but it would be good to explore that.
• 15:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's a really good point. I can ask some admissions folks. Speaking of all these schools though, one thing I forgot to mention at the top of the show is that two of the programs that we talk a lot about have announced new degree offerings. So Wharton being one of them. So Wharton announced the first new degree that they're going to put out there in 50 years and it's a Master of Science in Quantitative Finance. The MSQF is conducted via one year of coursework designed to follow a Bachelor's degree, ideal for Canada to possess a quantitative background. So that's a new degree offering from Wharton in Quantitative Finance.
• 16:27
  Speaker B: I bet, I bet you could get in Graham, with your seven figure.
• 16:29
  Speaker A: I don't think they take old people. Yeah, also I'm not really a numbers person and so, you know, but you know, it's just interesting to see this. And then meantime, you know, Georgetown McDonough launched a full time Ms. In business analytics and that's another like 10 month curriculum, although that's more open, I think to people who've worked a bit. I think they take both and it says, you know, it's sort of a combined degree in Business strategy, leadership development, data analytics. And they use a lot of machine learning, artificial intelligence, data visualization in that program. So two more kind of top MBA programs getting into the masters, the sort of specialized master's domain. And I think we're going to just see more and more of that.
• 17:10
  Speaker B: And are you thinking that these are cannibalizing their sort of marquee MBA programs at all?
• 17:17
  Speaker A: You know, it's hard to say. I think only time will tell. But because some of these specialized degrees are so niche, you know, their finance or, you know, you know, data analytics, et cetera. It might be drawing a different crowd. Like you might be an engineer or someone who's working in a quantitative domain that's not business, who wants to just get a kind of extra Master's. It's just one year. You do it right after undergrad in many cases. So maybe, you know, maybe you come back several years later for either an MBA or perhaps an executive mba if you're doing really well in your career and want to wait a bit. But, yeah, it's hard to say. I think only time will tell.
• 17:51
  Speaker B: Right. Very good.
• 17:53
  Speaker A: Yeah. So other than that, we could still use reviews of our show. If you want to write to us, please write to infoearadmit.com had a great question come in on the Info line about the H1B situation, which I wrote back to over the weekend. And, you know, again, go check out the little video I recorded. It's going to be up on probably LinkedIn and our YouTube page in, in moments, if not already by the time this airs. But you can always write to us at info.infoclearadmit.com use the subject line wiretaps. Alex, anything else before we talk about this week's candidates?
• 18:25
  Speaker B: Let's kick on.
• 18:26
  Speaker A: All right, so this is WireTaps candidate number one. Our first candidate this week has six schools on the target list. The schools are Columbia, Harvard, Wharton with Lauder, which is that specialized kind of language and geopolitics degree, Stanford and Chicago.
• 18:47
  Speaker B: Booth.
• 18:48
  Speaker A: They're looking to start in the fall of 26. They've been working thus far in strategy consulting at a global firm, and they're thinking either consulting or banking after business school, two very different fields. But they did mention Bain and BCG as primary targets. So I'm guessing that they're favoring the consulting path. They have a GRE score of 331, and their GPA is a 3.3. Four years of work experience to date, located in New York, and they're thinking of going to East Asia after business school. They mentioned Tokyo specifically. They say in the notes that they left for us that they're an international candidate and that they grew up in six different countries and can speak four languages, three with native fluency and one at a professional level. Their undergraduate was a top 15 US university where they had that 3.3. They earned their Bachelor's in marketing. They did do one year of computer science as a master. And I guess they. Why do they say masters? But anyway, they claim that their lower GPA, that 3.3 for them that's lower is due to those computer science classes. I guess they pivoted to marketing. They also mentioned that they've done two years of mandatory military service for whichever country they are from. I'm going to guess go out on a limb and guess maybe South Korea. And that they were worked in that role with the CIA and that they had a bunch of leadership awards in that role. They've also been fast tracked in their work. They think they'll have very strong letters of recommendation. They've taken the CPA exam and they have extracurricular that's related to their alma mater's career management center. They're a mentor there and they also are the founder of a 40 member volleyball league. So that's a lot. They left us a lot of details but I thought I'd share them all. Alex, what do you make make of this candidate?
• 20:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think overall this is probably a very strong candidate. You mentioned the Wharton Lauder program and would fit really well with the sort of the type of student that they seek out. I would think, you know, we hold them to their word that they have really good experience to date backed up by strong recommendations as well as their interesting military service coordinating with with the CIA or whatever it is that they discussed. It sounds very super interesting having that sort of global experience. I think all MBA programs truly respect and it is a global degree. So we need more of these global citizens coming through the top program. So I think they have a lot of potentially going for them. They obviously have a really strong GRE score which is going to be super helpful because the squiggle in their profile will be that 3.3 GPA of which they might might warrant a brief explanation in the optional essay. But the best way to overcome that slight drop off is coming back with a super strong test score. Getting the CPA certainly helps a little bit. Although I know you're more aligned with that. That's more of a professional credential than academic. But to be honest Graham, I think as long as their post MBA goals are well developed and they really tie that back to the schools they're targeting and so on and so forth, I got to say I like this candidate.
• 22:30
  Speaker A: It yeah, for me there were just, there were a couple of things that really jumped out. I mean I love the, you know, they grew up in six countries, they speak four languages. I mean that's just so appealing. And as you point out, if they're doing one of these joint degrees like a Wharton Lauder, that that's the kind of person that they're seeking out. Right. So that's good. I do agree the GPA is a bit low and it sounds like, if I understand correctly, they tried to do one of these joint undergrad masters in four years because it says they did three years of marketing bachelor's and one year computer science masters. So maybe it was all within that same university. And the is they say low GPA due to the computer science classes. And that makes me a little nervous because it might mean that the back end of their academic career was worse than the front end. You know, that's sort of a downward trend. But again, as you say, they did take the cpa, they have a high test score. There are things that they've done that might help to address that. So that's good for me. The only thing that's missing here because I think they have decent extracurriculars, everything, you know, they. The only thing that's missing for me is what's the sort of passion around the career plan. Right. So they're currently working in strategy consulting at a global firm and they talk about, you know, consulting or banking. It seems like they're leaning consulting. But I would love to hear like, oh, while I've been doing all this consulting these last four years, I've really been passionate about this sector and I want to kind of continue to build that expertise and, and you know, just some kind of story because otherwise there's. That's the piece that's kind of missing for me. It's like, what's their passion? Where are they headed?
• 23:54
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, I, I think that's really, really on point. Yeah.
• 23:58
  Speaker A: And I think they have one because they say they want to go to East Asia, like Tokyo, and so there must be something that's drawing them there. So hopefully they can story and have told it as they go. But yeah, good, good list of schools. They're all very top schools, but I think this person has a chance at least converting one of them. So I think, yeah, they're in good shape.
• 24:16
  Speaker B: Yeah, best of luck to them.
• 24:17
  Speaker A: All right, let's move on and talk about Wiretaps. Candidate number two, our second candidate this week has 10 schools on the target list. And those schools include Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Duke, hart, Harvard, Michigan, MIT, Kellogg, Stanford, Wharton and UT Austin. They're looking to start in the fall of 26. This person is an army officer and they're thinking about consulting or maybe aerospace, automotive, manufacturing type stuff. After business school, they list a whole bunch of companies because they have this wide focus. So I Won't read off the entire list there. They have a GRE score of 300 2021. Their GPA is a 2.76. They've got five years of work experience in, in the Army. They went to West Point where they had a quantitative major. They say their five years in the army has been kind of with logistics experience. They also had. They were deployed into the Middle east, combat deployment. They've meanwhile been pursuing a master. It sounds like. I can't remember what it's in actually if it's a. Yeah, I guess it's. They say an imsm. I'm not really sure what type of program that is. I should know what that stands for. But they have 20 credits already in this program and a 4.0 GPA. They've got a bunch of kind of data science certifications and project management certifications and they're applying to all these different schools and they're wondering what we think of the. Their profile. And Alex, I know you're going to talk about GRE GPA combo. So what do you make of this?
• 25:54
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean to be fair, their GPA would be the data point that stands out at 2.76. But you know, as a service academy, the median. And they actually put this in their entry. So I found it quite instructive. The median GPA is between 2.9 and 3.1. So there's very little or no grade inflation, I guess is the point here. So maybe this translates to more of a 3132 if it's comparable to other US schools GPAs. But still it's going to be below. It is below the median. Even though. Because the median as they, they said is sort of 331-and-2931. So I think that's the weak point. They've done some stuff to mitigate that. I get that. So they're taking classes, They've got a 4.0 GPA and so forth. So that's very good. I just wish that the GRE was a little bit higher because again, the score of 321 is going to be below the median of the schools they're targeting. Their list is quite, quite top heavy in that regard. Right. So if they think the scope for improvement, I mean, they don't need to be applying in round one. Right. They can target round two. They're not going to be overrepresented by any means. So I would really suggest coming doubling down, retake the GRE and really push for mid-300 twenties high 300 twenties to the extent that they can. When they supplement that or when that's supplemented with the additional coursework at the 4.0, that's going to be really, really helpful. I've got to believe that their career in the army is very, very good, and that will serve them really well in the admissions process. But again, they're targeting the very best schools. So I think if they could really elevate the gre, Graham, I think that would have material impact on their overall profile.
• 28:13
  Speaker A: Yeah, I tend to agree. I mean, I, you know, the gpa, it's. I recognize there's no grade inflation in the service academies, but this is a lower GPA than what we typically see even out of those institutions when we look at candidates applying to these top schools. Right. So now maybe we're getting the cream of the crop, people who just, you know, ace their service academy experience and, you know, are going off to these top schools. But it is concerning. And I, I, yeah, I agree. I would love to see, you know, a much higher GRE score. I mean, I, I think the issue with the GRE is that, and the schools know this is that it doesn't even really compare to the GMAT in the sense that, like, a 321 is. I can't remember what it is off the top of my head, but I think it's not even 700. Right. On the GMAT on the old scale. Right. So it's.
• 28:53
  Speaker B: Right.
• 28:54
  Speaker A: Yeah. So I, I would like to see a better result there. I know this candidate is very much leaning on their say, oh, Look, I got 20 credits in this master's program, and I've got a 4. 0. But it's just, you know, if you think of it from a stats standpoint, a school that's accepting this candidate is going to take a hit. Right. Because they're going to lose on both sides with DRE and GPA in terms of the averages. So it's tricky. Now, they may have great experience and they seem like, you know, I mean, they must. Right. I mean, five years army logistics, they've been to the Middle East. I mean, this person's impressive, there's no doubt. But I do feel like they could be stronger with a better score. And as you say, there's no rush for them to be getting the apps in round one, so I would. Would buckle down and try to improve.
• 29:36
  Speaker B: Yeah, No, I think that's very good. Yeah.
• 29:39
  Speaker A: Do you think if they're not willing to. Do you think they need to shuffle the sort of target list of schools I mean, because right now there's not really, I mean, you could argue that Carnegie Mellon and UT Austin are at the lower end of the rankings that they, you know, of the schools they're looking at. But should they be? I mean, you know, these are all really good schools, so there's not really a safety here in my view.
• 29:58
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you, you, you might argue that those in that tier, that they serve as their safety schools, if they've got right or not is the question. But they acknowledge that there's some scope for improvement in this GRE score. So I just say just do it.
• 30:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, agreed.
• 30:17
  Speaker B: Work hard, prep hard, come back with five additional points and that will materially impact their outcomes.
• 30:25
  Speaker A: Yeah, And I think the woman that we profiled earlier from NYU Stern would also say just do it because she worked at Nike for so long.
• 30:32
  Speaker B: Oh boy.
• 30:33
  Speaker A: Yeah, there you go. All right. But I want to thank that person for posting their profile. Good luck if they reset the GRE and just good luck overall. So, yeah, thanks for sharing that. Let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number three, our final candidate this week is applying to nine schools they've already actually submitted. It sounds like these apps in the first round. The schools are looking at are Carnegie Mellon, Duke, Emory, Georgia, Rochester, unc, Dard and Vanderbilt Built and Washington Olin again trying to start in the fall 26. This person's worked in energy sector consulting in their career to date. They've got five years of experience there. They're looking to pivot into consulting just sort of strategy consulting or pharma. And so they mentioned Bain, BCG, McKinsey, Ernst and Young, Deloitte as well as some of these pharma firms like J and J, Pfizer, Amjam. Their GRE score is a whopping 335 and their GPA is a 3.4. They're located in Pakistan and they will hope to land in the northeast of the United States after their mba. They did say they're applying in the first round. They think they'll have good recommendations and they said that they're currently involved in a peer led organization which they've taken on small support for education for several families. So I guess it's maybe a mentoring or helping people with education type activity. So that's all we've got on them. They didn't give us a ton about extracurriculars. But Alex, what do you make of this candidate?
• 32:07
  Speaker B: Well, I mean, quite honestly, the super, super GRE score. Yeah, obviously really helped because you know, I assume their undergrad is, is from Pakistan. So a 3.4. It's hard to read what that really means. Did they graduate top of their class, perhaps, or certainly in the top quartile or whatever it might be. But the GRE score really helps in that regard, I think. So that's good if they are right in terms of being able to get strong recommendations because their work output's really good and they can show that growth, that impact and so on and so forth that business schools really like to see. I got to think that the candidate might have under targeted a little bit in terms of their school selection. I would have at least had one or two pots that are maybe in an M7 or a couple more in that top 16 just to see where they land. I mean, I understand targeting the first round. I mean, they potentially could be put into an overrepresented bucket. But I'm just wondering if they did under target a little bit in this case. Graham?
• 33:23
  Speaker A: Yeah, it is an interesting question because, you know, why not apply to some very top schools in the first round? Very big GRE score? I agree that GPA probably is from Pakistan and maybe from, I don't know, some sort of quantitative degree and could be quite good. Like maybe they could be top 20% or 10% of their class. So yeah, hard to say. I mean, I don't see a lot of. I mean, we asked them for activities and they just shared that one. And so it's hard to know how kind of well rounded of a candidate this is. I also am a little puzzled by the career plan. They talk about having all this energy sector consulting experience, but then they want to do sort of regular strategy consulting or pharma. So I would love to understand where that's coming from because that could help paint a clearer picture and just give them a hook that, you know, some way of like, I don't know if there's something that, you know, that they've had an experience with pharma or, you know, what, what's driving that interest? So. But otherwise, no, I agree. I mean, I think they're going to into these schools or at least a subset of them. And that may beg the question for should they be getting ready to sort of, you know, take a Chance in round two on some additional top 16 type schools and see where the chips fall there. But I guess they can wait, you know, wait and see what happens this fall and adjust accordingly.
• 34:36
  Speaker B: Yeah, and best of luck to them. Hopefully they're starting to see some interview invites.
• 34:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, Exactly. In any event, Alex, thanks for picking out these candidates. Always a pleasure to talk through these different trials and tribulations that people face. But, yeah, let's get together next week and do it all again.
• 34:51
  Speaker B: Can. Very good. Stay safe, everyone. Take care of.