Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 364—Life sciences to MBA. Unicorn Tech to MBA. Big Ten Football to MBA

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MBA Wire Taps 364—Life sciences to MBA. Unicorn Tech to MBA. Big Ten Football to MBA · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:16
  Speaker A: Welcome to the clear admit MBA admissions podcast. I'm Graham Richmond, and this is your wiretaps for Monday, July 8, 2024. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, how are things this week?
• 0:27
  Speaker B: Very good, thank you, Graham.
• 0:28
  Speaker A: So what's cooking? I mean, I, you know, it's. It's been quieter on the wires, and now we're, you know, I'm seeing a lot of people. I think I saw wharton release some people from the waitlist, which is usually a sign that, you know, they're kind of pretty close to having their class finalized and starting to cut back.
• 0:47
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, we are certainly at that stage for last season. Possibly a couple of people got admitted off that waitlist. I saw a report on Livewire suggesting that someone on Reddit, or folks on Reddit reported that. So, you know, schools are still tweaking. So if folks are still on the waitlist, there is still hope. And it's quite interesting. I saw a query this morning on the live wire, you know, someone saying, I'm in at school x, but I really want to go to school y. I'm still on the wait list. Should I reach out to them and sort of reaffirm my commitment and should I mention that I'm in at school X but would rather come to you? And I think at this stage of the season, Graham, it's kind of like a Hail Mary. Why not, right?
• 1:44
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I guess before you pick up, pack up, and move, and, you know, dive in, it's not gonna. What are they gonna tell you? I mean, they're gonna, you know, it's not like they're gonna reject you because of that. They may be able to tell you, look, we're probably not going to the list anymore, so you should just go. But, yeah, maybe not the worst idea. So, yeah, definitely. Things are winding down as we get closer to orientation and preterm for some of these MBA programs. And by the way, that varies widely. A school like Wharton will have preterm folks come in. International students may come in in late July or early August for the rest of the student body. And then others, though, don't start until mid September. That would be like a Chicago booth. They start much later. So students kind of come in, I think, in early September or something. So it varies. But we are getting closer. And now all eyes are kind of turning towards the next cycle, which is why this Wednesday, Alex, we're doing our first essay insights webinar. I'm going to emcee the event. I'm sitting down with admissions directors from Duke, insead, London business School, Wharton, and Darden. And I saw the roster of who's coming from the schools, and it's a bunch of great. I mean, it's like the sort of senior folks. So it's going to be a lot of fun peppering them with questions and just asking them about their essays. So anyone who's thinking of applying, this is kind of must see webinar type stuff. And you can sign up at bit Lee summer essays. This is the first one. We'll have one the week after and two weeks after that, and three weeks after that. So we've got four or five schools every week that we're sitting down with to talk about essays. So really good stuff.
• 3:15
  Speaker B: How many folks you got signed up, Graham?
• 3:17
  Speaker A: I'm afraid to look now because I'm actually, I started to wonder if our zoom, like, can hold the number of people who've signed up. But I mean, fear not, we will upgrade or do whatever we need to do to alert zoom that. But it's like, yeah, there are thousands of people signed up. Right? That's what I last.
• 3:33
  Speaker B: I mean, it is crazy, year to year, year on year, or whatever the right term is. We've seen a big bump up in that number.
• 3:42
  Speaker A: Yeah. So it should be a lot of fun.
• 3:44
  Speaker B: Either that means you're doing a great job and everybody knows about it, or there's lots of folks applying, looking to consider applying this season. So absolutely fantastic. In terms of numbers, it'd be great to see how the first event goes, what the show rate is versus the number of sign ups and all that kind of stuff.
• 4:01
  Speaker A: Definitely. But, yeah, I think people are catching on. I mean, I have had so many schools tell me when we're at, you know, when I'm at conferences like GMAC, that they love our events. So I think some of it's just that we run pretty good events and the words gotten out in any event, real quick, over on the website, we had a bunch of good content that I just wanted to mention before we talk about this week's candidates. The first thing is we ran an admissions tip about how to select and prepare your recommendation letter writers, and that's kind of really important to read. There's actually a list of videos as well on that same admissions tip that you and I recorded, Alex, as part of our admissions academy. So you can go and watch the videos as well. But all about how do you pick your recommenders? How do you coach them through the process to make sure that they're really helping to kind of add to your candidacy. So that's on the site. We also did three admissions director Q and A's. Alex, I caught up. Or Lauren. Sorry. On our team, caught up with Melissa Rapp from Emory. Goyesueta. She's the dean of admissions there. We always ask them different questions, and one of the questions we ask, which I haven't been focusing on too much of late, is we ask them to name two courses at their institution that are wildly popular. And I love this because we get to learn about great professors and also sometimes they're sort of interesting courses. And so I picked this one for you, Alex.
• 5:19
  Speaker B: What do you mean sometimes? Graham?
• 5:20
  Speaker A: Well, I mean, sometimes they're just things that you don't know that are being taught, that are kind of unique. Sorry. So this one I think you're going to love. Melissa told us about a course she says the content marketing course, led by Professor Marina Cooley, is focused on the science behind creating sticky ideas. Students learn to create memorable slides in a pitch deck, apply screenwriting techniques to brand storytelling, develop and manage a cult brand, and conduct content audits on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. So I thought that would be right up your alley. But, yeah, Melissa was highlighting that over at Emory. It sounds like a fun course.
• 5:56
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely fantastic. It is. A lot of the, the material that I teach for various schools at the exec ed level focuses directly on that subject. So, yeah, maybe I need to take a look at that course or at least look at the syllabus, make sure I'm teaching the right stuff.
• 6:18
  Speaker A: Yeah, sounds like a good idea. We also caught up with Stephanie Kluth at ESMT in Berlin. I actually just was with her a couple weeks ago because I was out in Berlin to meet with ESMT and some other schools that were there for a conference, and she's terrific. And again, asked her about classes, and she said, there's a professor named Hannah Sutterberg who teaches a course that is called sustainable finance. And she said that the goal of that course is for everyone to understand this critical subject. She says, as a leading researcher in the field, the professor combines cutting edge theory with practical implementation and invites guest speakers and practitioners to share real world perspectives and experiences. By the end of the course, students are better able to integrate ESG into financial decisions and how to monetize externalities to measure impact. So, again, really topical, interesting course that's on offer at ESMT.
• 7:14
  Speaker B: Yeah, no doubt at all. And again, it's a subject that I'm really passionate about.
• 7:18
  Speaker A: So, yeah, I thought you'd be interested in that, too. And then the last one is, we caught up with RuPaul Ghadia, who is the new admissions director at Harvard Business School. And RuPaul, I actually picked some tidbits from her interview with Laurent on our team. Two little things here. She says this year's application will feature three essay prompts, which we talked about last week on the show, said, we're excited about this change, as we think it will give applicants the space and direction to share the experiences and aspirations most meaningful to them, while at the same time providing our admissions team with the information most helpful in evaluating their candidacy. So now you're hearing from, directly from the director why they've made that change. So does that make sense to you, Alex?
• 8:03
  Speaker B: Absolutely, 100%. Because that's exactly what essay prompts do. The previous essay prompt was very general and just give. I thought it gave candidates just too much wrong way to sort of to share their stories, whereas this. Three more specific questions. I completely agree.
• 8:25
  Speaker A: Yeah. And then the other thing she added, we asked her about the interview because everyone always wonders about the Harvard interview. And she said, an HBS interview lasts 30 minutes, and it's conducted by a member of the admissions board. Because the interview is a conversation about you, there are no brain teasers, mental math problems, case questions, or anything like that. Although we may reference your resume in the interview, we try to go much deeper. We may dive into something you wrote in an essay, a short answer field, or something a recommender might have mentioned. Through this conversation, we hope to learn more about your experiences, leadership activities, and the impact you hope to make in the organization and community that you plan to serve. So that's. Or, sorry, organizations and communities that you plan to serve, plural. But in any event, again, good advice. And we know that the HBS interview is a deep dive. The person's read your file. I remember talking with folks on their team. They say to do an interview with a candidate, they're spending like, 2030 minutes right before or the night before, rereading the file and really getting up to speed to kind of craft the interview with that person. So it's an intense process.
• 9:29
  Speaker B: Again, I might argue it's the best interview process across top business schools because they spend the time and effort to go deep on the candidate before they then interview.
• 9:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's possible. Yeah.
• 9:41
  Speaker B: Unfortunately, it turns out that becomes a little bit more stressful for the candidate because they're not getting just those light touch type questions, like, just tell me about yourself or whatever. They're being asked specifically, what did you mean by this? Or give us another example of that. And how did you feel then? Etc. Etcetera. I'm a huge fan of that approach.
• 10:04
  Speaker A: Yeah. And actually you and I many moons ago recorded a podcast just about the Harvard interview process. If you google clear admit Harvard admissions interview podcast, you'll probably find it. It's back there in the archives and it's a good summary of everything you need to know about their process. So if you're feeling like you're already confident enough that you're going to get an interview, then you could start listening to that show and getting ready. The last thing, Alex, we ran a piece on the site as part of our Fridays from the Front Lines series, and that was a piece written by a Kellogg student about their participation in something called the Venture Capital Investment Competition. And this is where MBA students from different schools form teams and get to play the role of venture capitalists. So they're presented with different startups to invest in, potentially, and then they're kind of judged on the way that their team goes about making the investment decisions. It sounds like a ton of fun. And this team from Kellogg won this year and, yeah, there were like 72 teams, I guess, and they came in first. So it's a really fun, fun story to read. It's up on the website if you're interested in that sort of thing.
• 11:08
  Speaker B: Yeah, very good.
• 11:10
  Speaker A: We did run one bonus episode of the podcast, and I guess people should get used to that. There are going to be lots of little extra episodes, but we ran one that you can find in the feed here where I sat down with admissions directors from Duke, Georgetown, Yale and Emory to talk about grades, testing, career history, and also outside activities as those kind of key components of the application process that was recorded out in Chicago last May at our big kind of clear admit MBA fair event. So that's in the feed here if you want to listen to that. Still to come are a whole bunch of interviews that I did with admissions directors from a whole number of top schools, Yale, Duke, MIT, Washington, Foster talk, Cambridge. There's a whole number of them, and they're going to come little by little. We're working on them now. So you'll see those in the feed here, as well. As always, if you want to write to Alex or me, you can just write to infoclearadmit.com and use the subject line wiretaps. Alex, anything else before we get into this week's candidates?
• 12:12
  Speaker B: No. Let's kick on.
• 12:13
  Speaker A: All right. So this is wiretaps candidate number one. Our first candidate for this week has five schools on the target list. They're looking to start school next fall. So they're going to be applying this fall. They've got Berkeley, Tuck, Harvard, Kellogg and Stanford on the list and they indicate that they've been. They've had two kind of little, kind of two work experiences in different industries before business school. One was they started investment banking and then they pivoted and became a strategy consultant for a niche firm. They have a total of four years of work experience. I think it's one year in banking and three years in consulting. They want to get into technology and maybe in the longer term entrepreneurship. They mentioned Google and Microsoft as potential targets for post MBA employment. Their GRE score is a 325. They have a 3.87 GPA from undergrad and as I said, four years of work experience. They mentioned that they are. That the strategy consulting that they do is at a life science strategy consulting firm. They actually joined as the fourth employee and now they're over 20 employees. So they have really seen this enterprise grow. They've been promoted twice. They're on this kind of accelerated path. And so they're actually already in what is described as a post MBA kind of role and they've really enjoyed kind of doing the project work that they do there. But they feel like getting an MBA may help them to get closer to building or owning something of their own. So that's where the entrepreneurial stuff comes in. And they mentioned that they may 1 want to do something like product management, maybe in healthcare technology, given they have this kind of life science background and they also talk about how they're going to have good recs. They have a senior manager and the founder of the firm they work for. And I guess somebody went to Kellogg, so they're feeling good about that part. And they also have pretty strong post collegiate extracurriculars that they mentioned. They're in a fellowship program. They've been mentoring for a couple of years and they're an associate board member for one of these organizations. They also were active as a college student, captain of a rowing team and so on. So, Alex, you exchanged with this candidate because you had some thoughts about some elements and so. Yeah, tell us a little bit about what you think of them.
• 14:39
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, overall, Graham, quite frankly, this is a very strong candidate. Strong GPA, 387, whilst also being very active on campus, captain of the rowing team. So some leadership there too, and various other things. So I think real strong coming out of undergrad. The work experience looks again similarly very strong. They did a year in tech. Ib probably be good to just get a bit more of an insight in terms of that transition to then life science and consulting or consulting in that area now in a startup. But they definitely navigated a really interesting pathway forward, which I imagine they can really show a lot of impact, a lot of growth, etcetera, which are the sort of the broad areas that Adcom will look at. So I've got to think their professional experience is very strong, their extracurriculars look very strong, their goals make a lot of sense. They want to either go directly into entrepreneurship or be a product manager that is, effectively run a product for another firm for a while to get those skills and then go into entrepreneurship. I assume so. I think there's just so much to like here. I think they probably need to target Wharton and Fuqua with their focus on life sciences, healthcare, etcetera. And those schools really stand out in that area. So they add those into the mix. Their GRE is the weakest point. It's probably a point or two below the average for the schools. For the top schools, they've got a 325. For most folks, that's a very good gre. But if you're going to identify a weak point in amongst a whole profile that reeks of just being really, really strong, it would be the GRE. But they've taken it several times. They've probably sort of squeezed the lemon dry there, as it were. So, yeah, that profile is a disease, Graham. But I do think this is a very strong profile.
• 16:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. I mean, they mentioned they've taken the GRE three times. They've landed at 325. So could it be stronger? Obviously, some of these schools, Stanford, and sometimes you see gres that are more like 330 or something, but it is what it is, and they had a great undergraduate GPA, as you point out. So I think they move on. I think what for me is going to be compelling, as you teased earlier, is that they need to explain what happened. They went into banking, and after a year they kind of bailed and did something different with this strategy consulting, which is fine. I think that what would be great would be to really see the passion around life sciences, which it seems is the case for them. But just to really build on that and think about what that means for their future career, I think that would give their candidacy its own kind of flavor. And I'm sure they know this, but Harvard launched that new MBA joint degree, right, with their kind of life sciences masters as well, or biotech. I can't remember what it's called. This is terrible because we even did a podcast about it. But they have a special degree that might be of interest as a joint degree. And then, as you point out correctly, I don't see Wharton on the list here. They're really known for healthcare management and that sort of area as well. And Duke. So those are some schools to think about. They have other schools on the list and they're all great schools. Kellogg, Stanford, Berkeley. Talk. And so, as you say, though, I think they should, should expand the scope and consider some of these programs and then maybe look to refine the list based on that. I do think that right now they have a kind of. It's a very top heavy list. Right. And so the question becomes, they're unique enough that I feel like they can apply in round one, go for the gusto kind of thing. And if it doesn't work out the way they're hoping, they could always adjust. Right. And add some schools. But, yeah, otherwise very interesting profile. They seem active outside of work and everything. So it seems like a great candidate overall.
• 18:45
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think so. Yeah. And you're exactly right. They can go high in round one and readjust if necessary, into round two.
• 18:53
  Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. That sounds good. Well, I want to thank them for sharing their profile and wish them best of luck as they journey through the application process. Hopefully they'll come to our essay events. Cause those that will sort of, you know, teach them a little bit about how to write all the essays they're gonna have to write for some of these schools. Let's move on, though, and talk about wire taps. Candidate number two, our second candidate this week, is also looking to start in the fall of 25. They have eight schools on the target list, and those schools are Berkeley, Duke, HEC, Paris, London, business school, Michigan, Kellogg, UCLA, and USC. This person's been working in technology. They are thinking of staying in that domain after business school. And they mention Apple, Google and Microsoft as preferred targets. They have a 730 on the GMat. Their GPA they listed as a 30. But you had some dialogue with them and we kind of learned that it was actually a 6.8 out of ten. And this is because they did the degree in India at one of the very prestigious iits. Those are the Indian Institutes of Technology. They have five years of work experience. They mentioned they've worked at Deloitte, where they were promoted within two years, and then they moved on to join a unicorn technology tech company. They also started their own startup. Sounds like maybe on the side, but they shut it down because it didn't go as well as they'd hoped. And they're currently working as a program manager at a series B AI startup. I guess that's maybe part of Y combinator or maybe funded by Y Combinator. So they, you know, they've got some other activities. They're an executive member of their undergraduate alumni association. They are a photographer and an adventurer tennis player for more than ten years now. And short term, they're hoping to do project management at a big tech company and then long term try their hand at entrepreneurship again. So, Alex, they don't say, but I'm, you know, they do say they're indian. I don't know if they're male or female, but either way, indian from one of the iits. What's your take on this candidacy? And, you know, any, any thoughts about what they need to do to be successful?
• 21:02
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think certainly they should be targeting the first round as some, as a candidate that might be overrepresented. Even if they're at the top end of the spectrum of that group of candidates, it still behooves them to be into the first round of the schools they're targeting. Their target list seems geographically very dispersed. So it might be smart for them to think about where do they want to be directly after their MBA in the short term, geographically, if they're not coming, planning to come directly back to India straight away. So if they were planning to come directly back to India straight away, I completely understand that the MBA program itself doesn't matter exactly where it is located, but if they want a short term experience in country where they're getting the MBA, that would impact. So they've got west coast schools, they've got european schools, pools, etcetera on their list. GMAT is very, very good. It's what it needs to be. If they're part of this over represented pool, quite frankly, it looks like their work experience is strong again. They've gone from a good but standard type of pathway coming out of their undergrad working at Deloitte, but then moving into the sort of the unicorn tech space and etcetera, and looks like they're doing interesting things. They've even, you know, done their own startup, even though it's failed. They probably learned a lot from that experience and so forth. So I think their work experience will play very well in admissions and their extracurriculars. They're okay. You know, hobbies and interests could be cool. It's very topical, being a tennis player. We've got Wimbledon going on right now, so that's very good. Hopefully they're able to tune in. But I'm not entirely sure about this. The GPA. Six, eight out of ten. I know you said before we came on air grain that that's actually quite competitive coming out of the IITs. I did ask them about a class rank, but it would be good to get a sense of where they sort of ended up in the class because, you know, an initial reaction is, well, that's. That seems a little bit on the lower side.
• 23:35
  Speaker A: Right.
• 23:36
  Speaker B: Certainly, if they're trying to convert it to a GPA, that's. That's going to create some. Some potential issues, I think. I like their goals. Product management, entrepreneurship. Quite similar, actually, to our previous candidate in that regard. They did ask a question about getting recs from their co founder. I don't think that that is a smart thing to do. Objectivity might come to question and so forth.
• 24:03
  Speaker A: Right. I mean, to me, the issue with that is that they've had a lot of other jobs, right? They worked at Deloitte. They currently working at a unicorn. They're a program manager, so they have plenty of people they could turn to for recs. And so the startup was on the side. And so, no, you know, it's not like that's all they're doing and they have no choice but to turn to a co founder or an investor for a rec or something. But, yeah, so sorry to interrupt, but, yeah, I just think that they don't want to go there.
• 24:30
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, I completely agree with you. But I think overall, Graham, if they do get into the first round, if they. If their undergraduate degree doesn't appear to be an issue at all. And again, they went to one of the top engineering colleges, so that's very good. I don't think they're being overly ambitious with their school selection. I'm just a bit curious how they came up with this school selection. But they've got some top 20, top 16, and they've got a couple in the sort of the top ten range. So I think they're being a little bit realistic there.
• 25:04
  Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, the thing. I agree with you, I was puzzling over the school choices. I mean, these are all great schools. I was just trying to figure out how they ended up all on the same list.
• 25:12
  Speaker B: Right.
• 25:12
  Speaker A: And I think, yeah, it's. I mean, you know, Hec, Paris and London business school over here in Europe, and then they have, you know, a couple of West coast schools with UCLA, USC and Berkeley, and then they've got, you know, Duke and Michigan and Kellogg and again, as you said, it's sort of top ten, top 16 and then Europe. So I don't know, I was just trying to figure out what. So, for example, you know, they mentioned Microsoft as a target post MBA. And so I'm thinking, wow, maybe they should have foster on the list as well as a school that does really well, University of Washington in Seattle, that places people really well in tech. So I don't know, I'm just wondering if, as you say, if someone looks at the GPA and is thinking, well, yeah, it's the IITs. But you couple that with a GMAT score that is sort of around the average of a lot of these top, top schools and they're overrepresented. So, yeah, you could see a way where they might end up on a bunch of waitlists or. And so I wonder if, yeah, it just might make sense to really take a careful look at school selection and, you know, make sure that they, they kind of narrow down to maybe six schools and have the right range of admissions difficulty. And I just would encourage them to think about where they want to be after business school because they're not going to land in the same places. If they go to HEC, LBS or Berkeley, they're likely to land in the UK or in California or continental Europe. So they need to think that through. But, yeah, I agree with you 100%. Apply early because they're probably overrepresented. You know, the GMAT is. 730 is a great score. It's just that I think in that Indians from IIT kind of group, that's probably a fairly pedestrian score. So that's the thing I worry about a little bit, too, but not that they should retake, but I just. That's why they need to apply early and need to cast a wide debt.
• 27:03
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 27:03
  Speaker A: In any event, I want to thank them for sharing their profile. Let's move on, though, and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number three. So our final candidate this week has five schools on the target list. Those schools are Harvard, Kellogg, Stanford, Chicago and Wharton. They want to start in the fall of 25. This person's been working in real estate, private equity. On the development side, they want to do entrepreneurship, potentially after business school. They've taken the newer version of the GMAT and they had a 705, which is almost like a 750 on the old exam. So very strong GMAT score. Their GPA is a 3.32. They have six years of work experience located in the Midwest and they mention in the notes that they are a white male, went to undergrad at a top 15 public university in the US. They played division one football at the school in one of the most competitive conferences they mentioned. That's the Big ten. They double majored in finance and marketing. They had a three, seven GPA within finance but their overall GPA is that 3.32. They were very active in clubs during undergrad and very involved with alumni and industry networking groups, including the leadership role in one group. So you know there's. We'll talk more about this. But as far as their work experience is concerned, they. They do this sort of. I guess they worked for two years within affordable housing at a time, top firm in the industry on the acquisitions team, and they've done private equity for two and a half years at a middle market firm within the real estate industry on the acquisition team again. And they're currently working for a different PE firm focused on real estate development while also working a bit on the side for their family's real estate investment management firm. So this person lives and breathes real estate and development and mostly on the investment side, but some development too. So Alex, what do you make of this? I mean it's kind of a really niche kind of candidate and. Yeah, but what do you think their chances are? They have a very high end list of schools and it's sort of top five right type type schools, right?
• 29:09
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, no doubt. But again, there's a lot to like here. Yeah. Not least of which schools won't have to worry about employment afterwards. They're going into the family business and they've spent the last five or six years, you know, obviously working very closely in related sort of firms and so on and so forth, all related to real estate, which is the family business. So from that aspect, things are great. And I think their work experience looks like it's very strong. Again and again they've probably been very deliberate about sort of their moves to sort of build out their toolkit for the almost inevitable move into full time in the family business, which they're working in a little bit now, part time obviously they're super smart in as much as their GMAT is off the scale, their gpas are a little bit less. I mean in their finance major it's strong. Makes me wonder I. What they did in their marketing major when they only mentioned finance, me being a marketer, that's quite interesting. But division one football. Graham? I obviously spent a lot of years in America. I know what that means. And the dedication to do that. They're playing in front of hundreds of thousands of people on a weekly basis. The experience has got to be fantastic, too. Graham. I got to think so. So that I think division one football should really help them stand out, too. There's going to be some growth in their own attributes through that type of experience that folks that don't do that high level athletic experience and won't have. So I really love that, too. So I think, yeah, if we can look a little bit beyond the GPA, which I think we can, this is, again, another really super profile. They asked if they should apply to Harvard and the answer is absolutely, they might not get in, but if they don't apply to Harvard, they'll always wonder if they should have done. I think there's a lot here that Harvard's probably going to resonate with.
• 31:31
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, I agree. It's a very interesting candidate. One of the things that actually jumps out at me is the fact that their family has this business that's in the real estate and it's a real estate investment management firm or something, but they've actually gone and forged their own path, working at a few different firms in the same domain to prepare themselves to post MBA, get involved with the family business. But I like this because they went out and did their own thing to kind of get the right skill set. So it's not like they've been working for mom and dad since they graduated from university and now they're going to go to business school. Right. So I like that. I do think that, that schools will respect the division one football for the big ten and the demands that that places on a candidate.
• 32:15
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 32:16
  Speaker A: And, you know, I think it is quite difficult to achieve academically when you're, I mean, traveling all around the nation, playing these games every weekend. So I think, yeah, this is a strong candidacy and I agree they should apply to HBS. You never know. And, you know, frankly, the numbers are good. I mean, the GMAT, as I said earlier, is almost a 750 on the old scale. And, you know, GPA, 3.32. It's not, it's below average, but it's close. Right. And that test score suggest they're pretty sharp. So, yeah, I think this is a really strong candidacy and they can go all in on these schools round one. And if for some reason no one is interested, they could always, as we said with the earlier candidate, cast a slightly wider net in round two. So that'd be my approach.
• 32:56
  Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah, that makes the first and the third candidate very similar in that regard. Unfortunately for the second candidate, they can't afford that luxury.
• 33:06
  Speaker A: Right.
• 33:07
  Speaker B: They've got to get their strategy right in round one, whereas these, the first and third candidate, they're not going to be overrepresented. They bring enough to the table that really will help differentiate them. So if they end up applying in round two, they'll have just as much chance of getting into the schools they target in round two as they would have done if they targeted those same schools in round one. It's kind of the point.
• 33:32
  Speaker A: Yeah, agree.
• 33:34
  Speaker B: So, yeah, I think a lot to like.
• 33:36
  Speaker A: Yeah. So I want to thank that person for sharing their profile. Alex, great job picking these out, as always. I just feel like week in and week out, we get to tackle different cases and sort of teach people admissions this way, which is why we do the show. So want to thank everyone for tuning in. As always, please remember to rate and review the show. If you've managed to listen this far, you're definitely a true fan of the show. So thanks a lot for tuning in, Alex. We'll do it again next week if you're around.
• 34:02
  Speaker B: Brilliant. Stay safe, everyone. Take care.