Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / Episode 526: Admissions Director Q&A with Bruce DelMonico of Yale SOM

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Episode 526: Admissions Director Q&A with Bruce DelMonico of Yale SOM · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:17
  Speaker A: Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm your host, Graham Richmond, and this episode is part of our Admissions Director Q and A series today. I'm delighted to welcome Bruce Delmonico, Assistant Dean for Admissions at the Yale School of management. Bruce joined DL SOM in October of 2004 and has led the admissions office since November of 2006. Before joining Yale, Bruce was an attorney focused on First Amendment, white collar, and commercial litigation. Bruce holds a BA in Honors English from Brown University, an MA in Literature from the University of Texas at Austin, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. Welcome to the podcast, Bruce.
• 0:56
  Speaker B: Thanks so much, Graham. It's great to be here.
• 0:58
  Speaker A: I feel like I never get a chance to ask you about this and maybe we'll get a glimpse into it now, but I'm, I always forget that you have I know you're a lawyer, I think you've often said a recovering lawyer or something like that very much. But I always forget that you have this MA in Literature too. But anyway, tell me a little bit about your background because I think many of our listeners have no idea about it. So take us through your background and what led you to this role at Yale. SOM yeah, sure, of course.
• 1:21
  Speaker B: I'm happy to peel back the onion a little bit. So I've got the J.D. and then the M.A. actually, I'm from, from the New Haven area originally, so I'm a kind of New Haven native and have returned but after much travels far and wide and so and I was never associated with Yale before, my current role, I like to say, was a graduate of the Yale New Haven Hospital way back when. But, but this, my role now is my, my only other affiliation with the university. So yeah, so as you mentioned, I grew up in New Haven, went to Brown for undergrad, thought I might want to want to teach, want to be a professor. So actually it was in a PhD program in literature at the University of Texas. Decided that wasn't really a career for me. I enjoyed studying literature, but actually making that my profession was not as appealing. And so that's where I made the transition to law. And as you mentioned, I practiced for a number of years in litigation, white collar, First Amendment, commercial, doing a good bit of antitrust, some former litigation, those types of things. But then realizing that that wasn't the long term objective for me. And I had actually, we could talk about this more. I had actually had some experiences in undergraduate and law school in selection processes, not admissions per se, but selection processes that I had kind of stored away as positive experiences that I really enjoyed. And that's what kind of led to the transition to admissions. And I've really just, just loved it. And I've been doing it now for 20 plus years. So I'm back in New Haven, but after having traveled to Rhode island and Texas and Virginia and I practiced for a little while in Georgia, so I've seen a good bit of the country before returning back here to Connecticut.
• 3:06
  Speaker A: Yeah, and I love that you've been doing this since October 2004 in terms of your role in admissions, just because I feel like, I mean, cleared bit was born a little bit before then. So it's kind of nice to know at least somebody who's kind of more or less been around doing this stuff as long as I have. But tell me a little bit more about what initially drew you to admissions work. I mean, you mentioned you'd had some exposure to selection processes, but what drew you and also what's sort of still exciting about it today?
• 3:34
  Speaker B: Yeah, sure. It's good. We've been obviously, Graham, you and I've been riding the circuit for a while and there are a few of us who are of the same vintage or similar vintages. So it's good to have friendly faces who are still in industry. Yeah. So as I mentioned, when I was an undergraduate, I was a resident counselor and a resident advisor. And I got in my junior and senior years, I actually was on a committee that selected other counselors. And that was a committee selection process. So there was a committee I co chaired at my senior year and we would take applications from students who wanted to be counselors at the university. And then we would review them and discuss them and make decisions. And I really enjoyed that process. So it wasn't admissions per se, but it was a very comparable selection process that I thought was really interesting, really one of the many positive experiences I had at Brown, but really one that stood out. And so I kind of tucked that in the back of my head. And then as I went to graduate school and then law school and law school, I was again part of an organization called Student Funded Fellowships, which, which provided fellowships for students going into public interest law for their summers as a way to subsidize them because obviously they don't pay as much as so the big white shoe firms. And I did that for, I think, two of my three years, my second and third year. And again, that was another one where we would receive applications, we would review them, discuss them as a committee, make decisions. And again, I just kind of aligned with my experience at Brown, that I really like this selection process work. And so as I was going into my legal practice, as I was becoming a lawyer, I still had the back of my head. These were experiences that I really enjoyed and what is analogous to those. So that as I'm thinking about how I'm developing my career and positioning myself, what could that translate into? And that's where admissions came from. It just happened to be that based on timing and opportunity, I was able to end up here at the School of Management. This has been my first and only admissions role in som. But I think those two were very. Those two experiences were really formative for me. And that's actually one of the things I tell candidates as they're thinking about, you know, as they're thinking about their careers and what they want to do is really think about what you've enjoyed doing in the past and kind of think about the aspects of that that you've enjoyed and what. How would that translate to a professional career? You could. There's so many things you could do. You could do just about anything. So there, you know, I've used those examples as kind of to illustrate what I'm talking about when I'm asked, when I'm talking to candidates about how you had to position themselves and how to think about how they want their careers to unfold.
• 6:13
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I think it's a resounding, you know, just one of the things you just mentioned, I just want to really underline is come up over and over again as I've been talking to admissions directors at some of the, you know, other leading MBA programs. And that is this idea that you could do so much with an mba, just the world is your oyster kind of thing. There's so many different roles, and so there's a lot of flexibility there. And. Yeah, that's a great analogy. And I just think you must have been. It's really lucky that, you know, Yale happened to have this opening because it allows you to kind of come home and. Yeah, I always love hearing you talk about New Haven because it's not so common to meet someone who works at a school who's actually from, you know. You know, sometimes you get people who are alums at school or something, but people who are from the area know the area the way you do it. So I think it's pretty special.
• 6:57
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, it worked out. It's very fortuitous. And so. And, you know, the logical assumption would be that you're coming from law. I would go to Law school admissions, but actually MBA admissions is much more interesting. Nothing against law school admissions, but it's more multivariate. I think people are coming from more diverse, more interesting places. That's actually one of the things I would say, to answer your question, about what excites me about. I got into this for a number of different reasons, but one is really, you get to live vicariously through people, where they're coming from. You get to see where they're going, their aspirations. It's a very hopeful time. And to be part of that transformation, seeing people where they're coming in to the school and then where they're going and what they're doing with their lives, it's just very positive and uplifting. And it's so. I still feel that way. And that's what makes part of what makes it really exciting and interesting. On top of the fact that I believe in the mission of the school here at Yale. My team is great and we really enjoy what we do. So there are a number of factors, but that's maybe the foundational piece of it.
• 7:56
  Speaker A: And yeah, I totally understand that. I mean, we, you know, even at ClearAdmit, we see people posting their, you know, career goals and things on the website as they share their profile with other candidates. And I'm always inspired by what people have done and what they're thinking about doing, and it's always different.
• 8:10
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 8:10
  Speaker A: So it's a really rewarding place to sit. Tell me, though, what's one misconception that applicants tend to have about admissions officers or even the admissions process?
• 8:21
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's a good question. It's tough because it is challenging. Admissions is in many ways seems like a kind of a. So black box. And for obvious reasons, there are personally identifiable information, there's FERPA issues. There are a lot of reasons why we can't just open doors, but we do try to be as transparent as possible as we can be in about what the process is like. And especially myself, having gone through the process as a parent on undergrad level, I can understand how it can be. Seem a little bit unknowable, a little bit. A little challenging. I think in terms of misconceptions, I guess there are a couple, but one big one is that the decision that you receive is some sort of absolute commentary on your potential, your ability. These decisions we're making, where they're made by humans, we try to make them as consistently and objectively and fairly as possible, but they're based on each school's particular priorities and needs relative to the applicant pool, we might prioritize certain things differently. So I think to the extent that candidates take this as kind of a referendum on them, it's really, it should not be. And I think that that's. It can be challenging not to think of it that way. But I would say that's one thing that's a sort of misconception or maybe kind of a. I don't know if it's a misconception, but a belief. And then maybe underpinning that is just the realization that this is not a formulaic process that, you know, there are humans doing this. We again, try to make it as, as fair and consistent and objective and kind of based on measurable metrics. But we're at bottom line, we're still, still human based for now, until the robot takeover, of course. But, but there, you know, there is, it's, it's. There's. So there's, there's judgment and nuance that goes into it and, you know, it's not just a rank order based on some, some kind of limited number of metrics.
• 10:19
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's great that you're pointing that out because I do feel like you see time and time and again, someone will get into one school but not another. And it just, yeah, there's a little bit of. It's, it's art and science and it's, it's, as you say, it's a human process. And so I think it's great to know, not to be too discouraged. If you don't get good news from one program. It doesn't necessarily mean anything about what may happen elsewhere. I was just realizing as I was looking at your bio and bringing out onto the show here that you've been in this current role leading the office for 20 years.
• 10:52
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 10:52
  Speaker A: And I wondered, how has your thinking about admissions changed over the years if it has? I mean, maybe you still have sort of the same philosophy, but. Yeah. Has anything. What's changed to you in that timeframe?
• 11:04
  Speaker B: Yes, to your point, some things haven't. I think some things have been consistent. I've tried to refine. We have a very. We try again. I've said this already a couple times, but we really try hard to be very, very structured, very fair, very consistent in how we approach things. We try to make sure we're being mindful of bias. I think that's only increased over the years. We've tried to put systems in place or kind of processes in place to try to make sure we're being as consistent as Possible, I think one thing that maybe has changed or not that it was ever not the case, but it's only become more heightened. You know, I tend to maybe coming into admissions, I had the more typical view of admissions as sort of a gatekeeper function. We were kind of making decisions on someone's candidacy. I see it much more now. And this is not a new thing, but it's been evolving over the years as more of a matching process. It's a two way process. We are trying to make decisions about who we want to be part of the Yale ASWOM community. But the people who are applying, all the kids who are applying, are trying to decide if we're in the right place for them as well. And so we definitely think of it as a very unified approach in terms of area like recruiting and selection and then enrollment. They're not really discrete phases. And so we try to, for example, in the recruiting phase, we try to articulate and on the enrollment phase what our values are, what our mission is, what the experience experience is like so that you can decide whether this is a place you want to apply to. And if you're admitted, this is a place you want to enroll at. And it's not just about that one point where we're making the selection decision. So that's become more and more the case over the years. I don't know if it was ever not the case, but it's definitely become more prominent in my thinking over the years.
• 12:52
  Speaker A: Okay, what about something that applicants tend to worry about far more than they should?
• 12:59
  Speaker B: Yeah, you do a number of these. I'm interested to hear what other people say. But, you know, the one thing I would say is the essay. I would say, and I don't know how that aligns with what other people say, but I feel like there's this view, not that it's not important, but there's this view among, I think, applicants that it's the last thing they have control over. It's really the one other than the interview, perhaps the one piece that they can really have some ability to present themselves in a more substantive way. And it's not. And we definitely care about it and we definitely look at it and we definitely incorporate it into our review. But I think relative to the amount of stress and anxiety and sort of hang wringing that it induces, I really wish people would again do a good job, take it seriously. But don't parse every little, every minutia about should I be this word here or this topic or this, I think just Keep it simple, do a good job and realize that it's one data point among many. So that's one area where I feel like there's a lot of. A lot of stress and a lot of anxiety and a lot, a lot of energy kind of devoted that maybe could be better. Better placed elsewhere.
• 14:10
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I guess in your case in particular, you guys have a number of different components. I mean, all schools do. But I'm thinking about there's some video.
• 14:17
  Speaker B: Right.
• 14:17
  Speaker A: That people submit as well. So. Yeah, it's just one. And you just have the one essay. I know some schools have, you know, several. Right. So, yeah, so that's great advice. And now I'm trying to think back of what everyone else has said when we've interviewed them. And I think there has been some commentary about essays, but also, you know, comments about, oh, people think there's like one formula, one, you know. Right. Right. Way to present yourself, which is not. Not the case. Tell me this, though, I'm kind of wondering, you know, when you think about students you've admitted over the years, because, you know, again, you have like 20 years plus of. Of track record to look at here, what are the qualities that tend to distinguish those who make the most of their opportunities while at Yale? Som. So, yeah, just. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
• 15:00
  Speaker B: Right. Yeah, that's a great question. And I mean, obviously, stepping back, we admit people for lots of different reasons and we pride ourselves and we aspire to have a very diverse class across a range of dimensions. But I do feel like one thing that, you know, one quality that maybe is more common among students who make most of their opportunities is. And I don't know how this relates to other schools, but is curiosity, I think, and that translates within the classroom, our integrated curriculum, which I think values people who are kind of curious, broad thinkers. But even outside the classroom, exploring the university. I think what's wonderful about being at Yale is that the entire university is open to you. And so I think the people who make the most of the opportunity to the ones who are just curious about these experiences more generally, one anecdote to maybe put some definition around it. Sharon Oster, who was a longtime member of the econ faculty and dean of elsom, she would teach the microeconomics, the foundational microeconomics course. And at one point someone asked her who does best in that micro course? The assumption was it would be economics majors. People who had the economics background said no. The people who did the best actually tended to be humanities or Liberal arts majors who just really got into the subject and really just were curious about it and just got into it and really made the most of it. And I think that's kind of how things work. People have so many different backgrounds. I think the differentiator is really kind of your interest over your curiosity.
• 16:42
  Speaker A: But don't the liberal arts majors just do the best at everything? Of course. Naturally I'm joking because on this show, we have a show that airs every Monday called Wiretaps. And my co host, Alex Brown is always ribbing me from my kind of liberal arts background, and he's more of a computer geek, so he's always kind of ribbing me. And I'm always like, oh, never underestimate a liberal arts grad. But I guess one of the things I wondered if you'd comment on this is just a little bit of a tangent, but you talked about the integrated curriculum, and I just wondered, for someone who's tuning in, who doesn't really know what that means, would you? I mean, just because I think it's quite extensive at Yale. I know a lot of schools try to do this here and there, but I feel like it's quite. It's sort of part of the DNA of your program. So just comment on what that is.
• 17:26
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, no. Thank you for that. It is, I think it is more. I don't want to say, I say radical, but it is more widespread. It is more sort of, I think, differentiated. So the integrated curriculum, it dates back to actually my early years at SOM and the realization among the faculty that the MBA curriculum that had traditionally been taught didn't align with the kinds of careers and kinds of professional lives that our MBA graduates had. That the traditional MBA curriculum tended to be organized along functional silos. And so you'd have your marketing class, your finance class, your operations class. What the faculty at SOM did is they took all the core concepts, but they reoriented based on stakeholder perspectives and tried to break down those silos and create what became the integrated curriculum. It's much more interdisciplinary and it really tries to get our students and our graduates to think broadly across functions, across industries, across sectors. It brings in material from non business disciplines. So we have faculty in law and health and the environment and medicine and policy coming in to teach part of the core. And I think the idea is to really get our students to think in a different way. And it's been incredibly successful. And I think it is, as you say, some schools have kind of dabbled in it here and There. But I don't think anybody has really adopted it the way we have or kind of jumped in feet first the way we have.
• 18:51
  Speaker A: Yeah, thanks for shedding some light on that. I know it's a little tangential, but I just thought it'd be good for those tuning in who don't know enough about, you know, how everything is run at Yale. Som. When alumni come back to Yale, what's something they often tell you that they didn't fully appreciate when they were students?
• 19:09
  Speaker B: Yes, that's a good question.
• 19:11
  Speaker A: And you can't say, like the free hors d' oeuvres at different events or anything.
• 19:15
  Speaker B: Those are good, though. I know. I think we spoil people. Orientation, the first day of orientation, it's the first lunch, it was so good. And everyone's like, this is setting the bar way too high. You got to start with sandwiches and bill. But it was like this beautifully composed meal and we're like, no shift. You overshot the mark there. That's definitely part of it. I think a couple things I tend to hear most frequently from students as they graduate and after they come back is they wish they had taken advantage of the broader university more when they were here. And I alluded to this earlier, when you come to the Yale School of Management, when you take electives, you can take as many as you want outside the som and they count towards your degree. So you could take all of your electives at the law school or the environment school or Yale College or elsewhere, which everybody does to some degree. But then there are also co curricular activities. There are centers, there are conferences, there are symposia, and even we talk about the convening power of Yale even on a daily basis. Just the people coming through, sitting on classes, having, you know, teas, and the residential colleges kind of giving talks. The opportunities are really almost endless. And so I think that's one of the nice things about being at Yale. And the university very much likes the schools to interact in it for, to be as, you know, to break down the barriers to getting to know people at the law school or at the med school or, you know, drama school, architecture, what, you name it. So I think one thing is that students maybe wish they had tapped into the larger university a little bit more than they did. And then the one thing they appreciate, I think, is as alumni, being able to leverage the entire university alumni network, not just som, but undergrad, Yale, college, law school, again, environment, public health elsewhere. I think that does help. And I think there's very much A feeling all of the Yale graduate professional schools are relatively small. Med school is 100. Law schools in the 200s were, and then the 3 hundreds. And I think there's a general feeling that everybody should be helping everybody else. So the fact that you went to Yale, regardless of which school, when you reach out to a Yale alum from whatever school, you will definitely get their attention. So I think that's a good thing.
• 21:27
  Speaker A: Okay, terrific. Give me one stereotype about Yale SOM that you'd love to debunk.
• 21:34
  Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sure there are probably many. I think the one, maybe most percent. It's always tough to bring this up because I think we're seen as the nonprofit school, but we're really a general management school. But we are. Our mission of educating leaders for business and society. Our historical starting point is an MPPM program. The alumni we have in the public and social sectors who have done amazing things. I think it's not undeserved or unearned that we are strong in that area, but I think people think that that means, like, 90% of our students are going to the social sector. And it's actually much different. I think it's actually nice. I think we have, I think, a sort of and plus approach. We're as strong as every other school in terms of things like investment banking and consulting, management consulting. But then there's this long tail where you can do so many other things because of our historical mission, because of the alumni we have who've done so many unique and interesting things. So I think that's the one thing I would debunk. But, you know, in a qualified way, because I. I don't mean it's not as though we're trying to sort of move away from our. Our roots in any way.
• 22:39
  Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. No, I think that's terrific. What about. I mean, you're kind of uniquely positioned to answer this next question, which is what role does the city. So New Haven or even the broader community, you know, you're in New England there. You know what. What role does all this play in the student experience at Yale som.
• 22:57
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I'm biased, obviously. I'm from the area. And I think. I mean, they're obviously one of the things as part of. As candidates are thinking about where to get their mba, where that happens, the community in which that school resides makes a difference. And some people might want to be in the big city, some people might want to be in a more rural environment. We're kind of in between. I personally like that we're in. New Haven is kind of a medium sized city. It's about 130, 140,000. The city itself, about a half a million in the greater New Haven area. Which is, which is, that means there's enough for things to be happening. We're kind of on the water, we're near the mountains in New England. There's lots of opportunity, lots of food, lots of theater and music, and lots of things to keep you engaged. But it's small enough that everybody knows everybody else. You don't get lost in the city. It's easily navigable. So I think that environment is really conducive. It's also very close. There's a commuter rail line between New Haven and New York, so you can get to New York easily, you can get to Boston easily. So it's kind of, kind of got a lot on its own, but it's accessible to the larger cities. And I think it's very, very livable as a city itself. So I think I like that that has that to offer. And then there are also actual initiatives. So when you're at som, you can, you know, there, there's a club for doing consulting to local businesses you can sit on. There's a, an activity called sort of board service where you can sit on a board of a local nonprofit. And actually the most recent thing is an economic partnership between the city of New Haven and Yale University. It's called the Inclusive Growth center that sits at som. And the idea is to think about ways to grow New Haven in a way that is equitable and inclusive and not just so the benefits just accrue to a small subset of the community. And so you could be an inclusive growth fellow when you're here, work with the city. The projects have included things like building a new comfort center, expanding the local airport to have longer haul flights, doing real research, and then presenting to the city in ways that could have real impact in the community. I think that New Haven is a great backdrop for Yale and for Yale srem, but also there are lots of active initiatives that you can be part of when you're a student here as well.
• 25:12
  Speaker A: I'm always a fan of a business school where people coming to study there aren't necessarily from there. So you get. I feel like there's a little more. There's a lot of cohesiveness that can happen when everyone's discovering somewhere new together. Right. So I think that's another kind of benefit. And I will say, I have to put in a word, maybe it's going to come up in the lightning round. But the pizza is fantastic, as I've been fortunate enough to get pizza with you at least once, maybe a couple times in New Haven. So let's. So those are all the serious questions that I had, but I wanted to do the lightning round again. This is the idea is just to let our listeners get to know you a little bit better. So I'll just go kind of rapid fire, but the first one is coffee or tea.
• 25:55
  Speaker B: Yeah, I'm going to go very strongly coffee on that one.
• 25:58
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 25:58
  Speaker B: I think I have an occasional cup of tea, but it's really. Coffee is the daily thing.
• 26:03
  Speaker A: Okay. Beach or mountains?
• 26:06
  Speaker B: Again, I would have. I'm definitely mountains. I'm not as much of a beach person, but I would specify that I'm talking about the lodge at the base of the mountains. I'm not the one up. Kind of like up the. At hiking or spelunking or doing whatever. I guess spelunking is caves, but yeah, got it.
• 26:26
  Speaker A: What about are you a morning person or a night owl?
• 26:29
  Speaker B: I am traditionally a night owl. I've shifted as I've aged. I've shifted more into the morning, but I would say definitely more night owl than morning person.
• 26:36
  Speaker A: Okay. What about a pet peeve that you have?
• 26:39
  Speaker B: Pet peeve. So, yeah, I'm sure I probably have many. One thing that comes to mind is, and this may be. I don't know how this translates to other parts of the country, of the globe, but when I'm on the highway in particular and their lanes are merging or there's a backup on an exit ramp and everyone's nicely in line and they do it and either kind of zippering together or waiting to get off and that one person or multiple people who kind of cut to the front and assume that they're more important than everybody else and their time is more valuable, that's very much a pet peeve of mine.
• 27:15
  Speaker A: Yeah, I hear you there, 100%. What about a comfort food?
• 27:20
  Speaker B: Oh, gosh. Yeah, just. But maybe all foods. You know, I'm going to. I could go a lot of different directions, but since you mentioned it and since I'm in New Haven now, I'm going to go pizza. I think you can. You can pretty much have pizza all the time.
• 27:35
  Speaker A: Yeah, it is. I mean, it really is like otherworldly. And this is coming from. You know, I've been around Italy a bit, too, but I think the pizza in New Haven is just absolutely fabulous. What about a guilty pleasure?
• 27:45
  Speaker B: I'm Going to go something very specific. I mean, I would. I want ice cream generally. But I'm going to say for those who are in New Haven, Ashley's Ice Cream, which is a local place that I actually worked at when I was in high school. It's. Yes, it's been around that long. And I will specifically call out the coffee Oreo with hot fudge as possibly the best thing you could get.
• 28:08
  Speaker A: No, wait, have I not. I don't think I've been to this place, have I? I mean, I haven't gone there with you. I don't think.
• 28:12
  Speaker B: Next time. Next time. That'll be on the agenda. Yeah.
• 28:15
  Speaker A: All right, now you're on. All right. What about the best advice you've ever received?
• 28:19
  Speaker B: Yeah, I'm trying to think of, like, specific piece of advice. I'm going to be a little more opaque. I was thinking about my father, who I think it wasn't express advice, but just by the example he gave in terms of how he conducted himself. I think I've learned a lot from that. But in terms of actually express advice, it wasn't. It was, again, a little bit more opaque. But he was an entrepreneur. He was a sort of a tech entrepreneur, like in the 70s, 80s, among other things. And he had an idea that didn't go anywhere. But then, like, the next couple people who tried succeeded. And the thing that he told me is, you know, sometimes the early Christians get the lions. And that saying always has stuck with me. And I think about that when I think about when I have an idea, am I positioning it right? How will it be received by others? And it's been helpful. It's also just a great saying. I think it's very evocative.
• 29:24
  Speaker A: Yes, totally. No, but that's a great point. And you see that. I actually, I mean, you see this in business so often. I mean, the key, the example that's cited over and over, going to be a company like Apple. They're not necessarily the first one to do something, but often they sort of capture the whole market with because they somehow have taken it to that next level. What's one thing that applicants should stop doing immediately aside from maybe cutting people off on exit ramps?
• 29:50
  Speaker B: Exactly. That's not going to go well. That's not going to go well. The one thing I would say is stop comparing yourself to anybody else. I feel like that happens all the time, whether it's some idealized perfect applicant or whether it's the other people who are applying. Like, everybody. We're looking at everybody individually. So just Focus on yourself and stop, kind of stop thinking about what, what everyone else is, how, what, what they're bringing and what, how they're positioning themselves.
• 30:16
  Speaker A: Okay, great advice. What about the best thing? This is the last question I've got. Best thing that you've either read, watched, or listened to recently?
• 30:24
  Speaker B: Yeah, I feel like I haven't. My reading has languished. I feel like when in admissions, you're reading so much otherwise that that hasn't been. But I will say, in terms of watching, there are some serious gaps in my TV watching, like, historically, I've seen some seminal things, but not others. And I am right now deep into Breaking Bad.
• 30:47
  Speaker A: Oh, wow.
• 30:47
  Speaker B: And it is, it is so good. I'm really enjoying it. And I'm sorry, I actually, another big gap. I need to then go from this to the Sopranos, because I haven't seen that either.
• 30:57
  Speaker A: Yeah, those are.
• 30:58
  Speaker B: But I'm trying to revisit some of these seminal series that I, that I, for whatever reason, didn't. Didn't experience the first time around.
• 31:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, no. Breaking Bad's a terrific show. Bruce, I know you're a busy guy, so we're gonna stop there, but I did want to thank you for making time to do this today. Love catching up with you. We didn't even get to talk with our listeners about some of our accomplishments, like winning the Foosball tournament at the EMAC conference last. But you know, there'll be other, other moments for that stuff. But no, really appreciate you making time.
• 31:28
  Speaker B: Yeah, of course. Happy to do it. Always happy to catch up and look forward to the pizza and Ashley's the next time you are in town.
• 31:34
  Speaker A: All right, sounds good. That's gonna do it for this episode of the show. Thanks for tuning in to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions podcast, and please remember to subscribe, rate and review the show wherever you listen. We'll be back with more of these admissions Q. And as the fall continues here, as well as our regular weekly episodes, which air on Mondays, it.