Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 323—Federal employee seeking transition. New York City to West Coast.

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MBA Wire Taps 323—Federal employee seeking transition. New York City to West Coast. · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:14
  Speaker A: Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions podcast. I'm Graham Richmond, and this is your wiretaps for Monday, November 20, 2023. For more than 100 years, Emory University's Guiseueta Business School has been a training ground for principal leaders and a laboratory for powerful insights. Whether you're looking to accelerate your career or make a career pivot, Emory's one year and two year full time MBA programs prepare you for a lifetime of career confidence. Learn more about Emory's top 20 MBA With Top Five career outcomes offering world class academics and small by design classes delivered in a dynamic global city. More At Emory Biz Slash Clearadmit, I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, how are things going?
• 1:03
  Speaker B: Very good, thank you, Graham.
• 1:05
  Speaker A: So by the time this airs, you're going to be like off on vacation somewhere. We got Thanksgiving coming up. It's going to be an exciting week, but I know that for candidates it's still kind of busy. I mean, even though I'm sure Americans at least will be taking a pause for the Thanksgiving holiday. But these are busy times in terms of waiting for results and maybe finishing up interviews and all that stuff.
• 1:25
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's kind of hurry up and wait, busy, busy. But there's nothing really for them to do other than obviously finishing up their interviews. If they are invited to interview, there will be a couple more interview invites going out, I suppose, with a couple of the schools and scheduling getting those interviews done. But many folks have now completed their interviews and literally they'll have about a month of wait and then the beginning of December for about a ten day period, two week period where all the top schools will release those round one decisions. We're seeing a few early round one decision releases. I think ISC is a school that's going to release next week, London Business School the following week and so forth. And actually Booth is the first one out the gate in the US the back end of November. But it'll be slow for a couple of weeks.
• 2:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, and we did see some INSEAD acceptances come across last week for their round one, which was great. You're reminding me this hurry up and wait thing. So we had a question that someone posed on LiveWire, because you can use Livewire to ask questions too. And someone asked the question like they were promoted at work and they're wondering should they tell the schools they've applied to in round one? And it's just got me thinking about, obviously their case is unique and it really depends on exactly what kind of promotion they received and their overall profile, et cetera, as well as the schools they're applying to and whether they allow for updates. But it did get me thinking that this is that time of year where candidates, they're so nervous waiting for results that they start to try to come up with anything to have an excuse to kind of reach out to the committee in hopes of somehow tipping the scales in their favor. And I would say nine times out of ten, it's a bad idea. You're just better off kind of sitting back at this point and waiting unless you have some legitimate update. But anyway, just an interesting time.
• 3:25
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think a legitimate update might be a better test score. If your test score is below their median, for example, and if it's a substantial work promotion, I don't think there's any harm in telegraphing the schools.
• 3:43
  Speaker A: Right.
• 3:44
  Speaker B: I don't think they're going to be like, all right, this is ridiculous. They're not leaving us alone. And it reflects on their sort of personal qualities, or whatever you want to call it, because that's the downside is the potential harm of providing an update. Yeah, I don't think if it's a substantial promotion there is really any harm. Keep it succinct, keep it to the point. But the one caveat is a couple of schools have explicit rules that they say, don't call us, we'll call you. Once your application is complete and submitted, that's what we're going to review. We're not going to make any adjustments to that. And I know Harvard was notorious for that in the past.
• 4:31
  Speaker A: I believe they still don't really want extra materials and updates, but that's the point.
• 4:35
  Speaker B: They don't really want. But I know some folks have given them updated information and they have gotten admitted. These rules are just very difficult for candidates, I think.
• 4:51
  Speaker A: Yeah, but the key thing you mentioned was be succinct. So if you're updating someone about a change in employment, just make it matter of fact. Like, hey, wanted the committee to know I have a new job now. Because you could argue that you have an obligation to let them know if your employment status has changed in some way. So you can let them know. I think that's fine. But, yeah, be succinct and just be careful that you're following the rules. But anyway, yeah, I understand. I've been there. You applied to business school too, Alex. Some time ago too.
• 5:19
  Speaker B: Right.
• 5:19
  Speaker A: So we know it's hard to wait when you're kind of waiting on those answers. But best luck to everyone as you kind of navigate through, try to focus on, for Americans, focus on the Thanksgiving holiday a little bit, and then it'll be right after that. We're going to roll into these decisions, as you say, Alex. So stay tuned. We have some events.
• 5:38
  Speaker B: Very good.
• 5:39
  Speaker A: Somehow it's great.
• 5:40
  Speaker B: We just did all that advice and we really didn't give them anything concrete to go on. It's kind of like, whatever. But I think the key is be succinct, be conscious of be succinct, and don't cause harm.
• 5:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So we have some more events coming up this month on November 30. This is a new thing. On November 30, we're going to sit down with seven of the top MBA programs in the United States. So it's Berkeley, Cornell, Duke, Michigan, NYU, Stern, UVa, Darden, and Yale Som. And we're going to have an admissions event. It's a kind of admissions advice event. We've got a whole bunch of really tough questions that we've prepared for these schools. It's kind of a roundtable discussion. They're going to do breakouts at the end where you can go and hang out with these schools and ask them your specific questions. So you can sign up for that at Bit Lee, CA Toptips. So that's coming up on November 30. I can't remember the time, but I want to say 07:00 p.m.. Eastern. So Mike, our colleague, is going to host that one because it'll be in the middle of the night over here in Europe. We also have two events coming up for master's in management programs. So if you're a current college student or currently completing another master's degree and you've never worked and stuff on November 29 and December 6, it's like two subsequent Wednesdays we're going to be doing again, similar to our other events, these kind of Masters in management exploration stuff. So we're going to sit down with Chicago, Booth, Michigan, Ross, Carnegie Mellon, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, Kellogg, and Notre Dame across those two weeks, just to give you an overview of what these programs are, what the requirements are. And again, asking these admissions directors who join us some tough questions about what they're looking for and how to best kind of put your best foot forward as you apply so you can sign up for those events at Clearadmit Mim. All lowercase, all one word. That's new for us. Alex, as I mentioned last week, those are going to be fun events because it's kind of new territory. We haven't really done much with Masters in management in the past and a lot of these top schools in the US, top MBA programs now we're offering Masters in Management as well. So very cool stuff.
• 7:50
  Speaker B: Yeah. And just to be clear, Masters in management are for folks that are still in school going directly into a master's degree. And that's how they're very different from the full time MBA program, which has typically been our focus.
• 8:06
  Speaker A: Yeah. Where you have to have worked, et cetera, when you join. So very different. I mean, the Mims, they tend to be like ten months. And I think it's ideal for someone who maybe isn't an undergraduate business major and wants to sort of pivot into the business world and get a quick run through of key skills before they hit the workforce. Because that political science or history or Even biology major may not land you the job you want in the business world right out of college. So they're kind of suited for that. But we'll learn more as we go through these events. So join us for that. Alex, turning to the website, we did an admissions tip that is obviously vital for anyone who's starting to apply in round two. It's called Know your audience and it's just know who's reading these applications. You will recall, Alex, that we recorded a great video about this very topic, which we called Understanding your admissions reader. And we also have another video in our Admissions Academy series that's part of the essays, videos that we recorded that touches on this very subject too. So go read the admissions tip on our site. The videos are there too. And if you're a cleared Met plus member, which is free, you can watch the videos and get up to speed as you write your round two application essays.
• 9:15
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's just marketing 101, right? Know your audience. Fantastic.
• 9:19
  Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. Our sustainability series rolls on. We've got Chicago Booth and Cornell that we featured this past week, and I thought I'd just share. I think it was Donna Swinford over at Chicago Booth who weighed in on the role that sustainability plays in the curriculum and in elective courses and things at Booth. And so she shared this note, which I thought was interesting. She said, in fact, we updated our curriculum in 2021 to include society as a management focus. We brought forward an important area of study that builds critical knowledge of the business environment in which firms operate society courses encourage students to think about the role of a firm in today's world and to look at the broader business environment from an ethics standpoint. These classes focus on leadership, society, the responsibility of corporations, and ethical implications as an underpinning of capitalism. So they obviously did a pretty big overhaul back in 21 that's helped to kind of integrate what we've been calling sustainability. They're kind of calling it society, but, yeah, very good stuff at booth.
• 10:22
  Speaker B: I love that. I'm waiting to see which firm starts boasting about their tax obligation and how much tax they pay each year, because to me, that's contribution to society. Right?
• 10:36
  Speaker A: Yeah, don't hold your breath, Alex.
• 10:38
  Speaker B: I'm not holding my breath, but the typical shareholder wealth sort of philosophy of the those or whatever was all about tax avoidance and tax manipulation and whatever. But I think at the end of the day, you're paying tax, you're contributing.
• 10:54
  Speaker A: To society as long as the government's spending the money. Well.
• 11:01
  Speaker B: At the end of the day, we live in a society that requires sort of social systems. Even in the United States, they hate socialism. I get, you know, we've got to look after people and we look after it through tax mean.
• 11:15
  Speaker A: You know, look, we work in higher mean, at least. I'll speak for myself here, but I'm a big believer in education, and I do think that funding school systems is important in any country. Right. Yeah.
• 11:25
  Speaker B: Where does that funding come from, Graham?
• 11:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, taxes. I mean, that's how it's my. So for the Cornell Sustainable kind of piece that we put up on the site, again, connected with them to find out more, and they have this thing that they call, I guess it's the Sustainable global enterprise immersion. So this is an immersion program, they say, that is central to our first year students experiences and the sustainable global immersion. Enterprise, sorry. Enterprise immersion has for nearly 20 years, trained students to engage with sustainability in a strategic manner. Our aim is for students to consider how companies take on challenges in sustainability and create and capture value by tackling these challenges. Students in the immersion undertake live engagements with sponsor companies in sectors ranging from technology commercialization at startups to Fortune 50 companies. So there's, like, literally a part of the core, it sounds like, in the first year, that requires students to do a lot of stuff with sustainability at.
• 12:22
  Speaker B: Cornell Johnson, which is brilliant, you know? And again, as you know, this is a topic close to my heart. I was reading this morning on the BBC, and the BBC does report on some US news. So it's quite topical that the New York State government is suing or planning to sue. I'd have to look at the language PepsiCo for all the litter that they find on the Buffalo River. Interesting. 17% of that litter that they've been able to identify to a brand, a PepsiCo product.
• 12:57
  Speaker A: So what does that say about Pepsi customers?
• 13:01
  Speaker B: It's interesting, isn't it? Right? Should companies be fined for the behavior of their customers?
• 13:08
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's a tough. I'm kind of, from a customer standpoint, it's very fascinating. If Coke could boast that their customers don't litter or something, that would be interesting.
• 13:18
  Speaker B: Well, the key is Pepsi should get rid of single use plastic. That would help mitigate the issue.
• 13:24
  Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Anyway, so more sustainability pieces to come. In the meantime, we did run a real humans piece with students at UNC, Keenan Flagler and one of the students we caught up with, this guy named Sam, who's a current student there. And so I'll start with the serious stuff. We asked, what's one thing you would have skipped if you could have when you were applying to business school? Like, what aspect of the process? And he says, one part that I wish I could skip is the uncertainty of waiting for acceptance letters. It was a nerve wracking time as I couldn't help but wonder if I would be accepted into the programs that I applied for to cope with this challenging phase. I kept myself busy with various activities and hobies I enjoyed. Whether it was immersing myself in a new project, volunteering at a local organization, or pursuing a new fitness routine, staying occupied helped to divert my thoughts away from the anxiety of waiting. So I thought that was really topical, given where we are in the round one cycle right now.
• 14:20
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's absolutely brilliant for clear admit because it keeps people coming back to Livewire to hit the reload button. That's true. So their pain is our gain.
• 14:30
  Speaker A: Graham, the other thing, though, you will not believe this. So Sam revealed, because we ask lots of kind of personal questions. So he revealed that before business school, he had a terrible, I mean, like, diagnosed fear of heights. Okay. So he set out to tackle this prior to know to showing up on campus because it was just something he wanted to do. So, Alex, what do you think he did to kind of overcome his fear of heights?
• 14:57
  Speaker B: Please don't tell me he jumped out of a plane or did some bungee jumping.
• 15:01
  Speaker A: He jumped out of a plane over Dubai because he's from. I think he's originally from Egypt. There's a photo of it. Okay, so if you go to our website, you're reading real humans. And in Sam's profile, where he talks, know, applying to UNC and everything else, he talks about his fear of heights. And there's a picture of him falling from the sky above. I don't remember the name. There's that famous kind of manmade island that looks like a palm tree, I think, in Dubai. So you can see that in the background. He's like, way up there. So that would not be my first thought. Like, how do you overcome a fear? Heights? Jump out of a plane. That's what he did. And I think he's curious.
• 15:35
  Speaker B: I will only leave a plane once it's landed.
• 15:38
  Speaker A: Yeah, good idea.
• 15:40
  Speaker B: And I don't think I have an extraordinary fear of heights. I just think it's a sensible way to conduct your life.
• 15:46
  Speaker A: Fair point. So I think that's it. We can get into our candidates for this week. Now, there is one episode of the podcast Coming up, probably after the holiday break in the US for Thanksgiving, where I connected with the kind of head of admissions and stuff for MLT management, leadership for tomorrow. Great organization that helps underrepresented candidates to sort of go off to business school and excel in their career, et cetera. So connected with Mora from MLT, along with two students. One is a Stanford second year, and the other is a Columbia student who just graduated from the MBA program. And so just kind of talk to them about their process and also some really good, just admissions advice and career advice in that podcast. So it's coming soon. Stay tuned. It'll be in the feed wherever you're listening to this episode. So that's to come. Alex, I don't have anything else. People can always write to us at info@clearadmit.com if they have a question or just want to kill time while they're waiting for decisions to arrive. But, Alex, anything else on your side before we dive into our candidates?
• 16:49
  Speaker B: No. MLT. Great, great organization. But, yeah, let's kick off.
• 16:52
  Speaker A: All right, so this is wiretaps candidate number one. Our first candidate this week is not looking to start business school until the fall of 25. This person has six schools currently on their target list, and those schools are Tuck, Harvard, Kellogg, Chicago, Booth, Wharton, and Yale. They've been working in government, and they actually have about eight years experience working in the US government. They want to pivot and get into consulting. They've got companies like Bain, BCG, Deloitte, and McKinsey on the target list. Their current GMAT score is a 700, although they did tell us that they were practice testing at a level higher, like 730 or so. So they're going to retake at some point here, and they have time because they're not starting until fall of 25. Their GPA from undergrad was a 3.3. And again, as I said they've been working for about eight years. They mentioned they work for the US federal government in a niche economic role and they're one promotion away from reaching the top of the federal pay scale. But they're looking to pivot out of this field, which they kind of think is just going to pigeonhole them if they stay much longer. And that's why they want to do consulting and they feel like business school would be a great way to sort of make this pivot. They did say that they thought about going to like a weekend program kind of part time, but they realized that the transition that they want to make over to the private sector would probably be easier to accomplish via a kind of full time MbA. So that's the background. What do you make of this, Alex?
• 18:24
  Speaker B: Yeah, for one, let's tackle that question real quick on the front end. For a candidate like this, they're a little bit further along in their career. They've eight years of experience instead of the typical four or five year median sort of experience that makes someone think, well, maybe rather than full time, a weekend program, executive MBA or whatever it might be, might be a more meaningful opportunity would allow them to continue working and so on and so forth. There's definitely a point where for some candidates that switch of program format does make sense. But I agree with this candidate's assessment that because they want to pivot and get into the private sector and switch to consulting in the short run, the full time program does make better sense. It's slightly higher risk, much higher reward potential, I think, in this candidate's case. So let's look at their profile overall. Their numbers don't pop off the page, right? 700 GMAT, three three GPA. That's going to be below the medium for all the schools that they're targeting. As you mentioned, they are planning to retake the GMAT. And I think that's really important. If they do hit that 730, that will help further mitigate a slightly lower GPA. Right. As folks know, when they're listening, schools will look at the GMAT within the context of the GPA, the GPA within the context of the GMAT. So they're going to be related. So when both are going to be lower than the median, then there are things that they should and could do to try to change that. So they're planning on doing that because they're targeting next season. I really do like their professional experience and they had a follow on comment and I'm just going to read directly, Graham, what they said. My agency works with local businesses in high unemployment areas to help create us jobs. I'm looking to focus on entrepreneurship, join the MBA and transition into consulting to get a broader sort of set of experience, and then plan to return to the agency in a leadership position to better build out sort of public private partnerships. To me, that really will resonate well with ADCOM.
• 21:00
  Speaker A: Agreed.
• 21:01
  Speaker B: And when you combine that with the several promotions, which they can hopefully argue as a result of significant impact that they've had. So that sort of growth and impact that we always hark upon is really important. So I really like that side of their profile. I'd like to know maybe a little bit more about their personality and what interests they have completely separate from work, because everything that they've talked about, even in their sort of additional activities, is work related. So I'd like to know a little bit more about that. But I do think, Graham, if they can up that GMAT apply early next season, which is their target time, they might have to justify it a little bit in terms of the why now and the fit, being a candidate slightly further along in their career. But I think this is potentially a very strong candidate. I'm just a little queasy on the numbers at this point.
• 22:01
  Speaker A: Yeah, I tend to agree because they have a pretty fancy list of schools that they're targeting. Right. These are all top programs, and so getting that test score up will really help. I do think they're a bit older, but they're nontraditional, so that helps a bit. I think so. I love the goals. I think also the fact that the government work that they've been doing relates to small business and has given them what sounds like a lot of exposure to business, although not Fortune 500 businesses, but small business in the community. I think that'll help, too. I think that's a great set of experiences to bring into the classroom. And so I would say in order for this person to do well and get into these top programs on their list, boost the score. And then the other piece of the puzzle is, yeah, outside activities. They do mention in their comment that they help lead a local undergraduate alumni chapter for their area. I guess they went to a top 30 undergrad, they say, so that's something. But as you say, I'd love to see more or learn more about the sort of personality. What are they doing on weekends? What kinds of things are they. They can bring in to the NBA community that they're going to join. But overall, this person, they should be able to get into a top school if they do well on the retake of the test and obviously perform well in terms of producing some solid applications and.
• 23:18
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, completely agree.
• 23:20
  Speaker A: All right, so I want to thank them for sharing their profile on the site and for sharing some additional details per your request. Alex, that was cool. They can keep us posted. Obviously, they have a whole year, so hopefully they're watching our admissions academy videos and maybe they'll come and hang out on our monthly webinar that we do as well. But let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two. So our second candidate this week is applying to UCLA, Anderson, USC, Marshall, UT, Austin, McCombs, and then Vanderbilt, Owen. And they're looking to start this coming fall. So, 2024. They've been working in sales at a cybersecurity software company, and they're thinking of potentially doing a pivot. I mean, they have technology on their post MBA target list, but they also talk about media entrepreneurship, and I believe sports as well was mentioned in the comments. Their current GRE score is a 316. Their GPA is a 3.3, just like our first candidate today. And they have four and a half years of work experience, located in New York, but would love to relocate after business school and land in LA or Nashville. They mentioned that they've taken the GRE once with that 316, but they're about to take it again. They also shared the fact that they attended a small college in the Northeast where they played a sport and held leadership positions. They do admit that they have not the strongest GPA, but they feel like they've shown good professional development in their industry. With promotions at large, reputable companies, they're hoping to use the MBA to transition to strategy or entrepreneurship and arm themselves with the tools to run or manage a successful business, they're also open to potentially getting into the sports entertainment management space, particularly if they go to an LA based school. So, Alex, that's kind of this candidate. There's a lot of moving parts here and I'm just curious to hear what, you know, based on school selection. Know, just their numbers.
• 25:17
  Speaker B: And I mean, again, like the first candidate, I'd really push hard to try to improve the test score. Now, this candidate is applied this season, so they've only got a limited window in order to do that.
• 25:30
  Speaker A: Right.
• 25:31
  Speaker B: But if they can get that GrE score up into the 320s, that will make a material difference. And again, the reason being their GPA is below the median, again, just like our first candidate. So when you look at the test score in the context of the GPA, something needs to give. So a higher test score will have an impact here, I would think quite considerably. They talk about their work experience. They've shown professional development in their industry with promotions at large, reputable companies. That's really good. They've worked in sales at a software company. Sales oftentimes is kind of little bit of a stepchild in terms of the types of careers that top MBA candidates have undertaken. But if it's sort of sales in conjunction with business development and there's some innovation and entrepreneurship there in terms of stimulating new markets, new territories, whatever it might be, that should make sure that's worked into the narrative. So are you a salesperson just taking orders and selling product in an efficient manner, or are you a salesperson that's really helped grow the business and innovate and have impact? I think you can delineate the differences between the two. So let's hope it's in that latter category. But I guess also my point here is also having a great sort of career doesn't necessarily mitigate a lower GPA, right? So the GPA is going to be looked at more in the view of the test score and so forth. THe ADCOM have got to feel really confident when they look at the test score and the GPA that the candidate will really thrive in the early part of the curriculum, which can be the most challenging part. Odly. So just make sure that's clear. And then the other side of it is just making sure the goals are well developed. So if they're interested potentially in sports and entertainment management, when they're targeting sort of Anderson and Marshall, make sure they go all in on that, make sure they know the opportunities that Anderson and Marshall would provide in that arena. They've done their research, they really understand it. And they also make sense of why they're particularly interested in sports and entertainment based off of their prior experiences. Obviously they played sport and held leadership positions whilst they're an undergrad, maybe those leadership positions were also within the sports domain, et cetera, et cetera. So tying all that together, we can't underplay the importance of having really viable goals that resonate with the schools that you're targeting. So those would be my quick thoughts on this profile. Graham?
• 28:39
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think for me, one thing I want to just draw a distinction here is so both this candidate and the first one had three threes, right? But when you look at the target schools, the median GPA at their target schools is a bit different, right? So the median for the first candidate is probably like three six plus or something at a lot of those schools they had, whereas here, three, three maybe does put them more in play. But as you point out, the GRE is too low at 316, so they're going to be below average there. So they're retaking it, and hopefully that goes better. And then the other thing I'll just add is, yeah, I could not agree more. They need to develop a coherent kind of career explanation as part of these applications. And I'm a little concerned about where's the sports background besides playing sports, is there a way for them to connect these dots with those LA area schools? I would not want them to sort of come to the application process with this sort of smattering of, well, I might do this, I might do that. They need to have a plan, and the plan needs to be well explained and sort of rational. And then the only other thing I would say is they have four and a half years of work experience, and they did mention several promotions at large, reputable companies. So I'm wondering, how many companies have they worked for? Has it always been in sales at this software company? Presumably not. And so we don't have the full picture. Obviously the schools will, and so that will matter, too. But again, I think they have a nice list of target schools. I mean, if they do want to land in LA, obviously Marshall and Anderson are great schools to look at. I would even argue that McCombs does a pretty good job of placing people out west if that's where you want to land. And then they do have Nashville as a potential target location. And so Vanderbilt obviously makes a ton of sense. So I think things could line up for this version, but I'm hoping that the GRE puts them more in the 320 plus range when they retake it. So we'll see how that goes.
• 30:32
  Speaker B: Couldn't agree more.
• 30:33
  Speaker A: Yeah. All right, so hopefully they'll keep us posted. I want to thank them for sharing their profile. Alex, we have a few minutes left, and I know it's been a little quieter with apply wire entries because we're kind of midseason now, but I did want to bring up another subject because just like last week, we kind of talked about, we busted that myth about how admissions readers read file and read files and get notifications out. I want to call your attention to a post that we received on LiveWire, which seemed innocuous enough. It was this post back a couple of months ago, I think. Well, maybe about six weeks ago. And this person, they just shared the fact they'd been rejected from in this case, it was Chicago Booth, right? And they said, oh, I was rejected. I think it must have been my recommenders who didn't like me, or some comment along those lines about how it was definitely the letters of recommendation. And when I looked at their Livewire entry, I saw that they had a 3.5 GPA and they had a decent, obviously, GMAT score. But that jumped out at me, and I thought, wow, this person's sitting there thinking, the reason I didn't get in is because of my letter of recommendation, which they have no idea of really knowing when staring right in the face. To me, looking at it from the outside, is this GPA that's 3.5, way below the average at booth, which is 3.6. And so I'm like, wow, they might be in the bottom 10% of those typically admitted to a program like booth when it comes to GPA. And I just wondered, what steps had they taken to address that? Had they taken business fundamentals or MBA math? I just couldn't help but it got me thinking about this sort of idea of self diagnosing a rejection from a school. So I don't know if you have any thoughts on that, but it's an interesting thing when you don't get in, you kind of are left wondering what happened.
• 32:24
  Speaker B: Blaming your recommenders is quite an easy thing to do, right? Because you don't know what. Well, hopefully, you shouldn't know exactly what your recommenders has said. So it's not my fault, it's their fault sort of idea. But I think that's a little bit of a naive approach. I mean, a certain level of self diagnosis requires a strong level of self awareness, right? Really understanding who you are, your qualities, your strengths, and your weaknesses. We all have weaknesses, right? And identifying them and so forth, and then sort of trying to really figure out, all right, where are the weak parts of my overall profile? And once identified, what possibly can I do to strengthen them for this candidate? Maybe as they readjust their strategy for round two? Right? Yeah, I think you can do a certain level of self diagnosis, but you could also try to get feedback from friends, from colleagues, and so on and so forth to really push for where the holes might be and so forth. Obviously, plenty of candidates will be working with admissions consultants to help them through this process. But one thing that I think admissions consultants, the service that they provide, is just a second person to review everything, to brainstorm with you and to push ideas. So if you can find that person, even outside of the admissions consulting, sort of paid process, finding that person can be very valuable.
• 34:14
  Speaker A: Yeah. The other thing I would say is this person could also, or anyone in this kind of a situation could put up an apply wire entry with their stats and background and indicate, yeah, I applied to these schools in round one. I'm thinking of these schools for round two, but I didn't get in in round one. And I want feedback. Right. And we can sometimes provide some of that. Obviously, we don't have the application, so it's a little bit harder. But in this instance, my first thought was, wow, that's a low GPA. And then I also was like, but the GMAT is really high. And so I was a little suspicious as to why they didn't even get an interview, because sometimes, especially a school like Booth where they're interviewing a decent chunk of candidates, they would bring the person in and at least talk to them. And so I couldn't help but think there might have been a misstep in their application strategy or positioning. I mean, it's possible that the letters of recommendation weren't as good as they could have been. It's possible, but that's often an easy scapegoat, as you said earlier. So, in any event, seeing that post when the person just put it up sort of matter of factly, like, oh, I didn't get into Booth. It's definitely because of my letter of recommendation or whatever. And I was like, not so sure about that. So I wanted to kind of call attention to it since we had a couple extra minutes today. Alex, thanks as always, for picking out some great candidates to discuss, and we'll do it all next week. I know you're not celebrating Thanksgiving, but I know you're going to get off on a little bit of a break, so enjoy that. And yeah, we'll record another episode ASAP.
• 35:34
  Speaker B: Is it Thanksgiving next week, Graham?
• 35:36
  Speaker A: Well, this week.
• 35:36
  Speaker B: This week, I mean, yeah, that's right. That wasn't even on my radar. Right. Because I'm taking a week off, going to London. But, yeah, mate, I will celebrate Thanksgiving. I spent 27, nearly 28 years over there, so that was actually my favorite holiday because there's no expectation of buying gifts and then thanking for gifts and whatever. It's simply a day of eating loads of great food with great people. Right. With thing. I absolutely love Thanksgiving.
• 36:08
  Speaker A: Yeah, same here. Huge fan. And it's something that I miss living overseas. I mean, try to do it. We do it here a little bit. But I love Thanksgiving.
• 36:16
  Speaker B: So happy Thanksgiving, everyone. That celebrates, absolutely fantastic and stay safe and good luck very good.
• 36:25
  Speaker A: All right. Thanks, Alex. See you next week. Cheers.