Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 494: Indian applicant, 337 GRE. Veteran, 715 GMAT. McDonough vs Anderson.

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MBA Wire Taps 494: Indian applicant, 337 GRE. Veteran, 715 GMAT. McDonough vs Anderson. · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Hi, this is Joanne from Harvard Business School. You're listening to the Clear Admit podcast. Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm Graham Richmond and this is your Wiretaps for Monday, June 1, 2026. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. How are things, Alex?
• 0:29
  Speaker B: Good, thank you, Graham.
• 0:30
  Speaker A: I thought we were going to have an episode with like a bunch of birdsong and the sort of breeze off the, you know, off the sea and Cornwall because you had a power outage, you're going to have to record outside. But I guess, alas, everything's back on.
• 0:41
  Speaker B: Everything is recorded.
• 0:44
  Speaker A: So we've got a ton of stuff this week. We've got an admissions tip that I'll get into on pre MBA coursework. We're going to look into a special program at NYU Stern. And then we continue with our Real Humans alumni series. Checking in with alums working at PepsiCo, Accenture and Bain. And obviously, Alex, you picked out some candidates for us to discuss. But is there anything going on on the admissions front? I feel like we're still seeing some late round decisions and maybe deferred enrollment stuff happening, right?
• 1:13
  Speaker B: Sure, yeah. I mean the schools like Tepper, London Business School, Arizona, Cary, Georgia, Terry, Georgia Tech sheller amongst the schools that are releasing decisions, scheduled to release decisions this upcoming week.
• 1:26
  Speaker A: Oh, wow.
• 1:27
  Speaker B: Okay, so there is still some activ. There will be for the next couple of weeks too, I would imagine.
• 1:32
  Speaker A: Okay, so we'll keep our eyes peeled for that stuff. I guess everyone listening is probably happy to hear that I don't have any big events to plug. We just had a whole series of events across May. And our next official clear admit events will not be until July. That's our famous essay workshop series, which is always fun. And we'll have 20 plus schools joining us for that. I'll get you the details of that probably in a couple of weeks. We haven't yet posted that stuff to the site, but actually it's funny, Alex. I'm going to be moderating a panel tomorrow night, June 2nd, here in Paris with admissions directors from a group of leading US Business schools who are going to be in town. And so those schools are Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, mit, Chicago, Kellogg, Columbia, Tuck and ucla. So I'm going to sit down with them. I'll be moderating a couple of panels that we're running and then there'll be kind of a networking fair so anyone in the Paris area come out for that. And then next Monday, June 8, I'm going to do the exact same thing in Philadelphia, with the same batch of schools, but also an additional school, uva Darden, is going to join as well. And again, that's a prospective student event. And I'm kind of excited about that one, Alex, because it's taking place on the eighth floor of Huntsman hall at Wharton.
• 2:47
  Speaker B: Oh, wow.
• 2:48
  Speaker A: Which I think is that giant, you know, space they have at the very top of that sort of dome in the building, which I've never been up there, actually, so I cannot. So that'll be fun. Yeah. So you can actually sign up for these events at bit. Ly. TopMBA. 26. So. TopMBA. 26. Bit. Ly. So, yeah, that I'm looking forward to that. I always. I've done this. This is the second year in a row that I'm helping these top schools out with some moderating, and it's a pleasure to do it.
• 3:14
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. No, they sound like great events. And returning to Huntsman Hall, I presume you were at Huntsman Hall a couple of weekends ago, too, right?
• 3:22
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So I'm back and forth across the Atlantic these days has been a little tiring, but it'll be. It'll be fun. So the other thing I wanted to mention is that we did another piece about careers. Elliot, on our team continues to kind of comb through trends in kind of career placement. And the piece that he ran is just a piece that we called why An MBA Remains One of the Best Pathways into Management consulting Careers. And, you know, you can. You can dig into the article, but there's a ton of data on percentage of, you know, graduating class that is going into consulting. And, you know, there's still several schools with a really big chunk of their class that gets placed into consulting. At Tuck, that number is like 41%. Same thing at Emory. Guizueta, McCombs also 40%. Darden, 39%. So those are some of the schools that really top the list when it comes to the percentage of people getting jobs in consulting. And I just thought it was interesting. There was this little tidbit in the article about how MBA consultants at McKinsey, for example, can expect a base salary of about $192,000, plus signing bonuses of 30,000, and then performance bonuses that can reach 4,40,000 in that first year. So you could end up earning $267,000 in your first year working for a place like McKinsey. So pretty crazy stuff. And I know we've been hearing a lot, Alex, about how, gee, job market's a little tight, AI is eating away at things. But some of these top firms are continuing to hire MBAs. And obviously going to a top school increases your odds of landing one of those jobs. But I just can't believe that compensation. It's ridiculous.
• 5:01
  Speaker B: No, it's really incredible. But I'm going to put in a bit of a counterpoint to this and it's, I think the consulting landscape is going to change or is changing. And instead of it just being MBB or bust or, you know, looking at the, the mbb, the big four and, and, and whatever the next tier is called, we're going to start seeing FDE type roles. Right. Forward deployment engineers, which aren't necessarily just engineers. They're effectively consulting assignments from the top AI firms and they're being deployed into their clients, corporates to try to deploy these AI technologies more effectively. So they go to these companies, they learn the workflows, how the companies work and operate, and then help design workflows with AI. And I think that is going to be a big important trend and I imagine we'll see that seeping into MBA recruiting. I think we'll see some of these firms going directly to top tier MBA programs to seek some of these types of employees.
• 6:23
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think you're right. And I think what'll happen is, let's say a Google or an OpenAI will grab someone senior from a McKinsey, bring them in and help, you know, kind of build out this kind of a practice of like going right into companies rolling out their tools and they'll probably argue, hey, we, we built these tools, we know how to use them best. Whereas I think the McKinsey of the world or the Baines of the world would argue, yeah, you may know the technology, but we understand how these businesses operate from, you know, you know, decades of experience. So it'll be kind of interesting to see how this all plays out. But I do agree. Yeah, there could be roles for MBAs for sure.
• 6:55
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And that's. Yeah, absolutely. So, so, yeah, exciting times.
• 7:01
  Speaker A: We could do a whole podcast on that. Let's move on though. We've got an admissions tip that we ran this past week about pre MBA courses and I wanted to ask you, kind of put you on the spot a little bit, Alex, but I just wanted to ask you, like, can you. What are a couple reasons that someone might need to do what we call pre MBA coursework before they even apply or attend business school?
• 7:19
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, if you're coming from the liberal arts background, perhaps it makes sense to take some basic accounting or economics Work before you begin the MBA sort of help you sort of get up to speed in terms of the preparation for the intense first quarter or whatever it might be. But it also might be because, you know, maybe your transcript isn't ideal and there's a few blips along the way and you, so you want to mitigate that with an additional bit of coursework and so forth. So I would put those two as the main buckets of, of reasons why folks might want to do this.
• 8:01
  Speaker A: Yeah, and what I love about these pre MBA courses is that not only, as you say, do they help you get ready for business school so you can actually hit the ground running and not struggle in the first year, but they also enhance your application. Right. So if you're trying to address a lower GPA from university or if you're just from a liberal arts background, like you said, like, I think it can really be helpful. It's a great signal to the admissions team. So something to keep in mind. And the article gets into what are some of the courses out there that people typically take? Because there are some that are tailor made for this. So you can read the article to learn more. We also on the website did a piece about a student who's at NYU Stern. And basically we get an inside look in this article into a program that's called Endless Frontier Labs. And this is basically Stern runs this mentorship program for early stage science and tech startups. And so this student whose name is Santiago, he's going to graduate actually, I guess he maybe just graduated. Right. So he talks us through the entire couple of years at Stern and he ended up via this program getting paired with a digital tech startup called Alpha Coreo. And what's so amazing about this is, you know, you think you're going to read an article about someone who like has this sort of hands on experience, you know, as kind of an intern in a company. But here's what happened during his mba. He's working at this company as part of this Endless Frontier Labs program, right? And he gets put into a provisional CEO role of this company and he's actually now working there in that capacity after graduation too. So he says there's a great quote from him. He says, I came to Stern hoping to move closer to entrepreneurship, but I found more than exposure to startups, I found a pathway to help build one. My MBA did not simply help me change functions, it changed the role I believe I could play in shaping the ways companies use frontier technologies. So he's now the CEO of this company. It's just kind of a crazy story. Anyway, it's a really good read and if you're interested in, you know, obviously early stage science and tech companies, it's a, it's a great read.
• 10:04
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, fantastic. Yeah.
• 10:06
  Speaker A: So the other thing we did is we continue to catch up with alums from top schools again, the idea being, I always think it's useful for prospective MBA candidates to, you know, hear from people who are several years out of business school in many cases. So we'll start with a woman named Farnash. And she is from Texas originally, Austin. She's 32. She went to McCombs where she got her MBA and she's now an associate finance manager at PepsiCo. She had also gone to UT Austin for undergrad where she studied biology. And here's what's kind of interesting. Before business school, you'll never guess what her job was. She was a dentist. Okay, so she was working as a dentist and now she's associate finance manager at PepsiCo. So we asked her, why did you choose to attend business school? And she says, I absolutely loved being a dentist and always will stay one on the inside. But the career was beginning to take a toll on me physically. I knew I could not practice full time forever. I needed to find something else that I enjoyed professionally. And while I knew I was sharp and had transferable skills, I needed to go to business school to demonstrate that to an employer and make my career change possible. So that she said that about the kind of change and then we said like, why did you choose PepsiCo? And she said, I wanted to join a company where I could grow long firm and that cared about its employees. I was also impressed by the number of PepsiCo Finance alumni who are now CFOs at other major companies. And then the last thing we asked her is just what would be something you might do differently as part of a job search? And she said, I would have done more career and industry exploration prior to the mba. I didn't even consider CPG initially because I knew nothing about it. So anyway, it's such an interesting story from dentists to PepsiCo. I mean, it's kind of a crazy run, right?
• 11:59
  Speaker B: A huge shift, no doubt. And what is the value of the MBAs is to allow folks to make those types of transitions, right?
• 12:07
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 12:08
  Speaker B: So this is a really good example of that.
• 12:11
  Speaker A: Now I would say now she's in the finance side, but I would say she's helping more people to drink Pepsi. I'm sure a lot of her dentist friends are happy about that too.
• 12:18
  Speaker B: I was going to say there might be a little bit of a tension there.
• 12:23
  Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. But anyway, she's in finance and it sounds like she's hoping to stay in that path. But in any event, really interesting story occurs, people to read that. We also caught up with Alexandria, who is from ESE, graduated recently from ESE in 25 and is a senior strategy consultant at Accenture. She's 28 and hails from Manila in the Philippines. She went to undergrad in Manila, studied management and she had worked at Procter and Gamble for four years before going off to business school. And now, as I said, is at Accenture and. And we asked her why did she go to esa? And she said, first, I wanted to be in Europe and ESA quickly stood out and the fact that it was in Spain definitely helped. Second, as early as pre mba, I saw the breadth of the ESA network and felt the strong sense of ESA community around the world. Third, I prefer practical learning. In my classroom alone, we had over 30 nationalities across different industries debating approaches to business decisions daily due to the case method that they use there. Plus courses like the Executive Simulation and Venture Capital Investment competition where you present to current board members and fund partners. So that's why she went to yesa. We also just asked her what's one thing you do again as part of your job search? And she said, stay true to myself and my values. It can be easy to be influenced by trends or others when you aren't, but that doesn't help. Right. So she's just talking about, I think we've talked about this a lot, but getting swept up in the kind of everyone, you know, wants to do certain types of jobs or whatever. So pretty interesting stuff. And it sounds like she's had a really good experience at esa.
• 14:07
  Speaker B: Yeah, and Spain's not such a bad place to get an mba, I reckon. Right?
• 14:11
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 14:12
  Speaker B: So, yeah, no, really, really good. And yeah, stay focused, don't worry about following the crowd, et cetera. So yeah, makes a lot of sense.
• 14:23
  Speaker A: And then finally, the last real human alumni that we're going to catch up with from this series is Emilia and she went to V. Vanderbilt, graduated back in 23, so she's several years into her post MBA career. She's now at Bain Co. Working as a consultant. She's 33, she's originally from Tennessee and she went to Washington and Lee as an undergrad, majored in physics, engineering and accounting. So it was a double major. She also, as I said, went to Owen where she studied Strategy, operations and marketing. And you know, again, she had worked prior to business school. She'd worked at Ernst and Young, she'd done a lot of kind of tax related stuff and you know, she went to business school, now is doing strategy consulting at Bain. She's been there for a couple years. And this is a great description. We asked her why did she want to go to business school. And I thought she did such a great job of articulating this. She said, as I moved up in tax and began engaging more in client management, I realized the most interesting problems taking up our clients time and energy weren't the ones I was working on. After moving into industry and seeing our company through a large acquisition, I learned that I wanted to be part of the broader strategic conversation. Why did we make this acquisition? Why now? Simply recording the tax impact wasn't cutting it anymore. Business school felt like the right next step to pivot into strategic finance, which is what I expected to pursue when I began my mba. So kind of interesting, you know, articulation of like the, you know, she felt like she was kind of on the sidelines or really in the, in the kind of weeds with the tax related stuff and now is looking at more strategic decision making.
• 16:10
  Speaker B: Yeah, tax. What are you doing? You're sort of dotting the I's and crossing the T's of what's happened.
• 16:16
  Speaker A: Yeah, right.
• 16:17
  Speaker B: Rather than the view going forward and being strategic. So I think that's absolutely fantastic. And again, quite a, quite a cost common rationale for wanting to pursue a top MBA and so forth. And yeah, and she's obviously super smart too, I think you said she has a physics undergrad degree, right?
• 16:39
  Speaker A: Yeah, physics, engineering and accounting. I mean, yeah. What's funny, she said she wanted to pivot into strategic finance when she started her mba, but she ended up at Bain. And she explains a little bit as to how that happened as she followed that journey through recruiting. But then we also asked her if there's any advice that she wished she'd been given and she says, I think this is great. She says, relax, you are way too stressed for something that will surely work out in the end. Sleep more, exercise more. This is the best time to make your health the priority and build great routines before you're in a very demanding job once again. So I thought that was a nice way to think of it. I mean, I think sometimes people do get really bogged down and like, am I going to get that job that I dreamed of when I came into business school and am I getting the Right. Grades or all these things. But the reality is, is that people tend to land on their feet out of these programs and that it's probably worth, you know, taking the time when you're not working full time to really, you know, just tend to yourself.
• 17:36
  Speaker B: And how. How's your running going, Graham, with this hot, hot, hotter weather? We're.
• 17:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, I'm not happy about the. The heat wave we have right now. I hate running when it's, you know, if it's above 25 Celsius, I'm not really happy to be running, so. And it's been like 33 here in Paris the last couple days, so. Yeah, not good. But some people love it. Yeah, I'm just. That's not my. Not my cup of tea. I wanted to mention that obviously people can write to us, as always, by writing to infoearadmit.com just use the subject line wiretaps. Alex. You know, it's funny. I've been in a couple of meetings recently. I meant to tell you this, where I've been visiting with schools and other people in our industry, and people listen to this show. Like, someone in a meeting I was at a few days ago was like, oh, yeah, I listened to the episode a couple weeks ago and you guys were talking about this, and I was like, oh, I didn't know that. People tune in on the admissions side of things. So it's kind of funny. Yeah. Just to kind of connect and hear that people are tuning in. So guess we got to keep the show going. Do you have anything else, though, before we get into this week's candidates?
• 18:40
  Speaker B: No, let's kick on.
• 18:42
  Speaker A: All right, so this is wiretaps candidate number one. So our first candidate this week comes from an apply wire entry. So this person is a prospect. They're thinking about business school. They have 11 programs on their target list, and those programs include Carnegie Mellon, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, MIT, Kellogg, Wharton, Stanford, Uva, Darden, and Yale. They've been working at Bain Co. In India, and they're thinking maybe finance or private equity after business school. They also have a family business that ultimately they want to help return to, you know, and get involved with. Their GRE score was a whopping 337. They had a GPA of 8.7 out of undergrad. That's on a scale of 10, and that's very good for an Indian undergraduate degree. They've got three years of experience to date. And they mentioned that they grew up inside this pharmaceutical manufacturing business that their family runs. Obviously, they're currently with Bain. But one of the big things that they're thinking about is like, oh, how can I go back after business school and potentially transform my family's company into a vertically integrated green pharmaceutical platform to sort of, you know, prove that, that this is possible at an industrial scale in India? They, you know, you asked them some questions about what else they do, you know, because they did a very good job of articulating their kind of career and career goals. But you asked them, you know, do they do anything outside of work? And they then left a really long comment with like a laundry list of all the things they do. They're involved with a lot of mentorship and some interesting initiatives even within Bain about a kind of disability inclusion group that they created or helped to kind of lead and get going. So lots there. I'm kind of curious what you think of this candidate because you know, the numbers are certainly there and they are working at a place where like Bain and they have a very, seems like clear set of, of career plans. But what do you make of this candidate?
• 20:43
  Speaker B: Yeah, I really like this candidate, honestly Graham. I think that, I mean obviously the numbers are right there. 337, 8.7 GPA. I like the thoughtfulness of their approach to their long term goals and their potential impact. They've obviously thought long and hard about this. They have the platform in order to execute on this with their family business and so forth. I just think there really is a lot to like. As you, as you pointed out at the end, some of the extracurricular work that they do, etc. Etc. Is also impressive. So to me they just got to get all their ducks in the row and apply in the first round to the extent that they can. Right. So if they are considered overrepresented in the pool by, by getting into the first round, they'll be able to hopefully stand out because of their, their, their numbers, their impact, their, their focus, their energy. And I, yeah, I quite frankly, Graham, I think this is a very strong candidate out of India. I'm not sure what API innovation refers to in their, in their description. So they just might want to be a little bit careful in terms of use of jargon because I'm thinking application programming interface. No, it's not seem to fit the context.
• 22:15
  Speaker A: In this context it's, it's active pharmaceutical ingredients. So I guess there are all these chemical, chemical compounds that are produced and it seems like India's usually has been a big provider of some of these. Like they make some of the compounds and then they get shipped off to be made into drugs or whatever. I don't know. But yeah, so it's. Yeah, but you're right. That is one thing that I was a little concerned about is. Yeah. They need to be. Yeah. Figure out how to describe all this stuff in a way that anyone could understand.
• 22:41
  Speaker B: And mostly they did that. Well, it was just that one phrase that sort of tripped me up a little bit.
• 22:45
  Speaker A: Well, especially because people think of it as. What is it? Application Protocol Interface or whatever.
• 22:50
  Speaker B: Application Program Interface. It's basically how everything's connected online.
• 22:55
  Speaker A: Yeah. And so that's the most common use of that acronym. So. Yeah, they. In any event, I think they're. Yeah. Like you say, the main concern is that they are Indian. We don't know if they're male or female, but. But either way, they're probably a little overrepresented. And so applying in that first round is really what it's going to come down to. But they have a good list of schools. I don't think they should apply to 11 schools. They should probably narrow that list a bit. But what I like about the list is that it's a mix of. It sort of spans the top 16 or 18 schools. Right. So they have a range. It's not just all M7. So I think that's smart.
• 23:27
  Speaker B: Yeah. But when you combine their numbers, the fact they're at Bain, and their vision and goals and impact, I think this is a top candidate.
• 23:37
  Speaker A: Yeah, agreed. Yeah. They will probably get into an M7 program and. Yeah. So anyway, I want to thank them for sharing their story. It's a really interesting story and they have a very kind of admirable kind of career goal. So best of luck to them as they get their applications together for round one. Don't wait on any schools for round two, but let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two. So our second candidate this week, Alex, is also from an apply wire entry. And this person is looking at Chicago Booth, Harvard, Kellogg, Wharton and uva Darden. They want to start school in the fall of 27, just like our past candidate and this person. Their pre MBA career has been in naval aviation. So this is a military candidate. They're looking to pivot into consulting. They're particularly interested also in the kind of aerospace and defense sector as well. They have a. Where is it? A 715 on the GMAT, a 3.76 undergraduate GPA, seven years of work experience. And as they point out, they're a veteran Ivy League undergrad and they want to go either into consulting or potentially like a leadership development program. And just in case you're, you know, like me, still confused about the GMAT, that 715 is basically like a 750 or a 760 on the old scale that they used to use. So very, very impressive numbers. But yeah, what do you think this person's chances are? Because they have a pretty, you know, top heavy list of schools here. Right. I mean, it's all kind of M7 plus Darden.
• 25:11
  Speaker B: Yeah, but that's where they should be targeting for sure.
• 25:14
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 25:14
  Speaker B: I mean, I assume as a Naval. Naval. Naval pilot. I think that's what they said that they were. That's a good naval aviation. So presumably that's a good role. And they can show through their essays and so forth their impact and their military career should play out really well. And you combine that with a ridiculously high GMAT score, a strong GPA from an Ivy League institution, and you know, we, we probably need to just know a little bit more about what makes them tick and stuff outside of work and that. But everything sort of on the surface looks really super strong for a candidate like this. Graham.
• 26:01
  Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. And they, you know, I, I, yeah, just the, the, the test score, like, you know, you don't see that many 7 15s. Right. I mean that's, that's a good test score. And you know, and yeah, as you said, I mean, they went to an Ivy League undergrad. Like everything seems to line up here. We don't have of information about outside activities. But they've been in the military, so sometimes those are a bit curtailed anyway. And that's understandable. Obviously they connect with the military clubs at all the schools they're considering, make all those connections and get down to business. I would apply in the first round. They don't have to, but I would always prefer that. There's probably more likelihood of scholarship dollars or maybe they'll get some. I don't know if they're eligible for GI Bill stuff too. But in any event, very, very strong candidacy. Right.
• 26:48
  Speaker B: And kind of unl the first candidate. The urgency for round one isn't as present and the point I'm trying to make there is for this candidate, just focus on the very top programs in round one because they can just as easily come back in round two. And assuming they're US veteran, which I presume that is, they can easily come back in round two if they need to. I don't think they will need to, but they can. Whereas our first Candidate that if they're potentially overrepresented, they've got to go all in on round one. And that includes a spread of target programs and so forth. So that's the difference between these two candidates. One's potentially slightly overrepresented and the other is not by far. And that changes their strategy a little bit.
• 27:39
  Speaker A: Yeah, excellent point. Yeah. So again I want to thank that person for sharing their profile. Thank them for their service as well. But they should be in very good shape. And I agree with you. Go, go after the very best in that first round and see where the chips fall. Can always come back in round two. In any event, thanks to them for sharing. Let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number three. So our final candidate this week comes from a decision wire post and this person is, you know, as usual, undecided. Right. So they applied to Georgetown, McDonough, they applied to Boston Questrom and UCLA AM Anderson, they got into all three and they got into a couple of them with some serious dollars. Right. So they got into Georgetown, they have a full ride there. It's a GI Bill plus scholarship plus yellow ribbon. UCLA Anderson, they also got into and again with a full ride. So they've again GI Bill plus scholarship. So this is a veteran like our last candidate we talked about. So this is a military vet. They had five years years in maritime autonomous systems testing. That's what they had done in the military. They had a 635. Sorry, yeah. 635 on the GMAT exam and a 3.4 GPA in case you're curious. And you know, just again, just to give people the scaling on that. A 635 is like a 680, 690 on the old test. So those were their numbers. They mentioned that their long term goal is to place into defense tech procurement and they said that they work directly with private sector firms when they were testing systems. So I guess in their past career in the military. And they also say that they want to be in the northeast in the long term. So yeah, that's, that's kind of the, the background there. There was something else that I wanted to. So you had a little bit of back and forth or I guess Elliot had some back and forth with this person. But in any event, what do you make of this? Because they're kind of on the fence about, you know, do they go to Georgetown with a full ride or ucla. And keep in mind they want to be in the Northeast and I think that's maybe one of the factors. But yeah, what do you make of this?
• 29:46
  Speaker B: Yeah, if they wanted to be in California, this would be quite an easy decision. Right. Anderson is in the slightly higher tier than Georgetown, McDonough and, and yeah, that would make sense, but their inclination for wanting to be the Northeast long term, so I'm not talking about the actual MBA experience, but in the long term would for me make someone really scrutinize McDonough to see if or how realistic McDona is to allow them to pursue their career goals so that they can land in the Northeast and so forth. There will also be a much stronger alumni network in the Northeast from McDonough than there would be from Anderson because Anderson's, you know, alums would be more centered on the west coast, etc, so in the longer run, that might play out well for McDonough. So, you know, you would think there's some defense tech infrastructure in, in the sort of the Washington, D.C. area and so on and so forth. Right. So obviously the government, etc. So I would really look to see if McDonough can provide them the opportunities they're seeking from a professional standpoint, because clearly, I think From a standpoint, McDonough wins.
• 31:07
  Speaker A: Yeah, this is an interesting one because what I don't know enough about and what I recommend that they, they probably have more knowledge of this than I do. But, you know, if they want to be in defense tech procurement, you know, I'd have to think that there's. Yeah, there's some stuff. There's got to be something happening in the DC area in relation to this. It could be that many of the companies are, you know, out on the west coast or in other parts of the U.S. but if, you know. But there's probably a lot happening in D.C. too, because that's where the clients are. Right. So who are buying the stuff. So it's a little complicated, but I do, by the way, I didn't mention this, but their undergraduate experience was at a NESCAC school, which is kind of the best kind of liberal arts. It's an alliance of liberal arts colleges in New England, includes, I think Middlebury, Connecticut College, a lot of the good schools up in that area of the US and so I'm just thinking the one, two punch of having a great liberal arts college plus a sort of Georgetown University could be compelling for someone looking to build a career in the Northeast. Right. I mean, those are two. They'll have a couple of brand names on the resume, but I do recognize UCLA Anderson is a more highly ranked school often top 16 in the US and, and Georgetown kind of fluctuates from 20 to, you know, maybe 25 or so. It depends on the ranking. And so that's, you know, something to consider. Obviously, there's a, what's interesting is that they've got, you know, so much money from both schools, so they don't really have to worry. There's, there's no finance impact here. And they didn't mention Boston, presumably because it's maybe a bit lower ranked, but maybe they didn't get as much money either. But in any event. Yeah, it's tricky. I, I, I, I, I hear you, though. I tend to think, boy, you know, George sounds pretty compelling if you want to be in the Northeast. But they need to do their due diligence when it comes to the jobs because they did mention that some of these firms that they're interested in, they know, hire out of ucla. So, yeah, I would, yeah.
• 32:53
  Speaker B: And I, and I, I don't think you can underestimate the relationships that you build in top MBA programs with other, you know, admitted student. Yeah, obviously other students in the programs and so forth. And you really, really, as you'll attest, those relationships will last for the long run. And if you're all in the same region that is in the Northeast, and that it's just better, I would imagine.
• 33:20
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I can tell you right now, even a school like Wharton, which has a powerful global network, that network is very heavily concentrated around, I would argue, probably New York is kind of the epicenter. And obviously there's some people in Philly because that's where the school is. But yeah, there's a big pull and then there's a whole batch of people on the west coast, but it's, that's Wharton. Right. And so, yeah, what I would do actually, if I was this candidate, I would check in with the alumni club for Anderson in New York City and Boston and just see is that active, how many folks are in the club, what's going on there. Because that could be a nice way to sort of. Because otherwise I can understand what they're saying. They're like, oh, I could go and spend a couple years in la. It sounds like they're open to that. It's not like they want to be in the Northeast for their degree. It's after. So they're open to having a great couple of years in la, but then I would just want them to verify that they can find their way back. Back. And that. So they need to do their homework there.
• 34:14
  Speaker B: Well, there's two things. Verify that they can find their way back, but then also the value of the alumni network in the long run. Is there any real traction in the Northeast or is it effectively on the West Coast? And I think that's important. That's what you're buying into for these top tier MBAs. Right. Is the longer run impact of connections and networks and functions and whatever. Right. Which could be really beneficial from a practical standpoint in terms of getting new jobs or whatever. But also from a more importantly, I think from a personal standpoint.
• 34:51
  Speaker A: Yeah. And the only other thing I'll add to this and then we should probably just wrap up. But the other thing I'll add is just that, you know, Georgetown as a university has a lot of people who go there for the School of Foreign Service, for the law school. And I would have to think that some of these individuals are in the, you know, kind of working in government and defense. And there's probably a broader network than just what McDonough can provide. So I would encourage them to consider that as well. In any event, great dilemma to have free rides at two really fantastic MBA programs. So I hope that person lands on their feet. They won't go wrong. It's just they need to do their homework and figure out where they're going to be best suited. But yeah, Alex, thanks so much for picking these out as always. And we'll do it all again next week.
• 35:37
  Speaker B: Week. Very good. Stay safe, everyone. Take care. Of.