Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 321—770 GMAT, 2 years of experience. Indian, moved to Australia. Army, speaking fluent Mandarin.

Transcript

MBA Wire Taps 321—770 GMAT, 2 years of experience. Indian, moved to Australia. Army, speaking fluent Mandarin. · 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 6, 2023.
• 0:22
  Speaker B: 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.
• 0:59
  Speaker A: I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, how are things going this week?
• 1:02
  Speaker C: Very good. Thank you, Graham.
• 1:04
  Speaker A: So if I haven't yet received a Berkeley, Yale, Stanford, NYU, et cetera, et cetera, interview invite, am I not getting in?
• 1:12
  Speaker C: There's a lot of anxiety on Livewire for these programs trickle out these interview invites, but, yeah, there's still plenty of time. I know. Obviously you think it's better to have the invite in hand. I get it. But programs like Hass, they're notorious for rolling invites out late, so hang in whilst you can. I mean, there are obviously some programs that we know if you didn't get the invite by now, you're done, right? Sure, your Harvard, Wharton, Sloan, Booth, Ross, and so on and so forth, but there are plenty of programs that are still trickling them out. Lots of conversation on Livewire about this, lots of issues related to Columbia, because alums that are interviewing at Columbia are telling candidates that they will hear in two weeks, which Columbia now has a new process, so they're going to hear in mid December.
• 2:07
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's really hard. I mean, I will say I feel for these schools that manage their alums for these interviews because it's kind of like herding cats. And so, yeah, there are alums out there who don't know exactly or they didn't read the memo that I'm sure Columbia sent them. So they're just doing the interviews and they're telling people, hey, you'll hear in a couple of weeks. But really they're all going to find out at the same time in mid December.
• 2:28
  Speaker C: But the reason why they're getting that mixed signal, to me anyway, is quite obvious is because they've switched from that rolling process last season, which they'd done for 20, however many years that I've been involved in MBA admissions. So some alums, they're basically repeating what they've repeated for several years. So it's quite difficult to change.
• 2:52
  Speaker A: One thing I wanted to mention, I have a couple of just news and updates, as always. One thing is this Wednesday, we're doing our first deferred enrollment panel for this admissions cycle. So I'm going to be sitting down with admissions directors from Chicago Booth, harvard Business School, UVA. Darden, Wharton and Stanford. And that's at noon Eastern on Wednesday. So join us for that the following week. Same time, I'm going to be sitting down with Reps from Berkeley Haas, columbia Business School, yale Som and Carnegie Mellon. Tepper. So a lot of really cool stuff about deferred enrollment. You can sign up for these atMIT all lowercase, all one word. And just in case you don't know, these programs are just for people who are kind of still in school, right? So you're a junior, a senior in college, and you're thinking about securing a spot in an MBA program while you're still in college. So that it's there for you, waiting after you go and get your two to five years of work experience. Some Master's students are eligible, too, especially if they went straight from undergrad into a Master's program and are currently studying in that Master's. They can apply to these programs, too. So if you know anyone who fits that bill, definitely have them join us. These should be some fun events first.
• 4:09
  Speaker C: I think this has to be the first event that we've hosted that includes Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton in one event.
• 4:16
  Speaker A: Yeah, I didn't think about that, but yeah, they all know they run their different deferred enrollments, and this was the date we let them pick the dates, I think, when we set these things up. And so it wasn't by design, but it'll be fun to have all these schools together.
• 4:28
  Speaker C: They don't say, Let us know when.
• 4:30
  Speaker A: No, they didn't ask because we want to follow no. So it's just random will be a lot of fun. The other thing I should plug as well is that we are running a survey right now that we really need your help for. So if you are applying to business school or thinking about applying to business school, go to Bit Lee, clearadmitfallsurvey all one word, all lowercase, and take our applicant survey. And it's all about just sort of your preferences. Like when you sign up for a school's mailing list, how do you want to hear from them? How often? Which channels? Who do you want to hear from? Alums students, professors, admissions team members. So take the survey. It'll really help shape how schools communicate with you. So, yeah, take a few minutes to give back to the career community by doing that. Alex a lot of stuff's been going on on the website. We ran a really fun Halloween piece last week called Spooky Admissions Mistakes, and I'm mentioning it now, even though I'm sure everyone's already eaten all their candy and forgotten about Halloween, because there's some good advice in there. It's all couched in kind of funny, kind of zombie like quotes and things, but basically some good advice about things not to do when you're applying to business school. One of them is coming in wearing your Icarus costume, which is kind of flying too close to the sun when you really think you're full of it, and just be careful about that. Another thing is what we call zombie interviews when you're just too scripted. So read that admissions tip. It's a lot of fun and covers some pretty important things to avoid as you're applying to business school.
• 6:02
  Speaker C: Very good.
• 6:03
  Speaker A: The other thing is, again, this series that you helped us kind of spearhead, Alex, is the sustainability series, and that rolls on. We've got Berkeley Haas up this week, and just amazing to hear from each of these schools that we've been profiling all the stuff they're doing. And so I just want to read a quote from the article they recently launched, I guess this Michael's Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Business back in 21. Okay. So they launched this certificate. It's open to both full time and evening weekend MBA students. It requires nine units of required coursework, and students can create a pathway that's focused on either bringing a sustainability lens to a mainstream business function or building expertise into a specific industry, such as renewable energy or green infrastructure. And they also mentioned, all told, haas offers over 25 courses with a focus on sustainability. So that's pretty impressive, too.
• 6:55
  Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, if I think of top schools focusing on sustainability, for whatever reason, hass does come up into my consciousness high up on that list.
• 7:04
  Speaker A: Yeah, they've been early to, you know.
• 7:08
  Speaker C: I think a Yale hass maybe a couple of others right at the yep. And what I was impressed by was Harvard's sustainability piece. So all the top programs have recognized quite rightly, that this is such a super important endeavor. And so, yeah, really good.
• 7:26
  Speaker A: Yeah. We have more of these coming, so stay tuned. There'll be more to come. We also continue with our real Humans students series. We caught up with some students from Emory Goisueta. We actually talked to five students. You know, I want to just read a couple of quotes. So we always ask them, what would be something you might wish you could have skipped if you could do the admissions process again? And one of the students said, Well, I may have preferred to study less for the GMAT. However, it contributed significantly to honing my critical thinking skills and my ability to work under pressure. So that was kind of an interesting thing. So, on the one hand, she was saying, I would have skipped the test prep, but it actually turned out to be pretty useful, so maybe she wouldn't have skipped it.
• 8:09
  Speaker C: So the GMAT is useful for admissions officers to gauge admissibility, but maybe useful for the candidates to hone up those skills.
• 8:17
  Speaker A: So that's very then, you know, we always ask people, what's something you've learned about the community? So this person talks about same same person. She mentioned that she was truly impressed with the close knit community at Cuesueta, and that the thing that really jumped out, though, was the importance given to experiential learning. She mentioned that they have something called impact at Emory, which allows us to learn the inner workings of problem solving and bridge the gap between academic learnings and real life application by working in actual client sites on projects and solving real life business problems. So, sounds like experiential learnings at the four over at Emory, so that's really cool to hear.
• 8:58
  Speaker C: Yeah, brilliant.
• 8:59
  Speaker A: And then the other school we caught up with students from is Boston College, the Carroll School of Management. Again, talk to five students there. This is all on our website. You can go and read it. But I thought one thing that was kind of interesting was we always know. Again, we ask about what's something that surprised you? So we asked this, I guess he's a first year student about this, and he said, I knew the community and network were strong at BC, but not this strong. I was at a baggage claim at Boston Logan Airport wearing a Boston College T shirt before classes had started, and I was stopped by someone asking if I went to BC. So we got to talking, and it turned out that he was an alum of the MBA program, and he lived around the corner from me. He ended up offering me a ride home from the airport along with an impromptu information session about his time at Boston College and his professional background. The BC network is amazing. So that was kind of a fun story.
• 9:51
  Speaker C: Make sure you buy the.
• 9:57
  Speaker A: Event. Yeah. So that's kind of what's going on over on the website. If you're applying to either Emory or Boston College, go and read these pieces. Learn more from these students. I'm not doing it justice because there's a lot more in there. In the meantime, if you want to reach out to Alex or me, you can write to us at info@clearadmit.com. Use the subject line Wiretaps, and we will write you back. Alex, you picked out some candidates for this week's Wiretaps portion. Anything else, though, that you want to add before we dive in?
• 10:24
  Speaker C: I say let's kick on Graham, because I know you're on holiday. We need to wrap it up.
• 10:28
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, it's fine. All right, so this is Wiretaps candidate number one. Our first candidate this week is applying to four schools. They've got Columbia Business School, Harvard Business School, chicago Booth, and Wharton on their target list, and they're going to be looking to start in 2024. So, next fall, they are coming from a big four advisory consulting role, and they want to pivot into investment banking. They've got Barclays, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley on their target list there. Their GMAT score is a whopping 770, and their GPA is a 3.94. They have just two years of work experience, and they're located in California, but they would like to land in New York after business school. They do clarify that they will have had 2.75 years of work experience at Matriculation if they're accepted in round two of this cycle. Here. They mentioned that they're wondering whether they should wait until round one of 2024 to round out their profile, but they just feel like maybe their pre MBA work experience is relevant to their post MBA goal as it is, and that they will have strong letters of recommendation. So, Alex, what do you make of this? I mean, they don't have a lot of experience. Should they apply now or wait?
• 11:44
  Speaker C: Well, I'm going to ask you a completely different question first, Graham. How often do we see this combination of 773, nine? Four?
• 11:54
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's really rare and in fact, I think some of our listeners know this, but when you're a Clear Admit Plus user and you can go in and watch the Clearadmit Admissions Academy's videos, there's another tool you can use, which is the Livewire data dashboard, which allows you to play with historical livewire data. And one of the things you can do is you can actually put in a GMAT score and a GPA and kind of see admissions outcomes based on these figures and things. And I've played with this over the years because I just love looking at these numbers. And if you put in a 770 and a 3.9, you see a lot of green and the green is for admitted. So you're absolutely right, it's a rare combination and it's one that tends to get a lot of yeses on the admission side.
• 12:35
  Speaker C: Yeah, you've got me wondering now. I'm now going to the data dashboard.
• 12:39
  Speaker A: You're going to do it, alex, you're not supposed to do other stuff while we're recording.
• 12:42
  Speaker B: Come on, man.
• 12:43
  Speaker C: I think these statistics are ridiculous anyway. I might look at it a little bit later, it's cool, but the point is, their numbers are astounding, but that sort of table stakes in terms of obviously they're well above average for all the top programs in that regard, but that doesn't absolutely guarantee them admission, right. The admissions committee will look at the overall profile, they'll look at all the different elements, and we know that work experience, extracurricular activities, leadership and various other things are super, super important too. This person's work experience is on the lower end of the spectrum, right. In terms of two years, it's probably high quality work experience, I'm not debating that, but it's going to be two years or close to three years of matriculation and they're wondering if that's ideal or maybe they apply to round one next season. So my quick sort of thoughts on that is, with two and three quarter years of work experience and matriculation yes, they're probably not optimizing their opportunity and their access to the very best schools. They may still have access, but they're not in a year or two, with more experience, maybe a slightly different experience, or whatever it might be, they will be a stronger candidate, I think, or most candidates will improve over those couple of years in terms of their attractiveness to the top programs. But that said, why not take a flyer now and apply in Round Two. And the benefits of doing that are, one, they might actually get access to a very top program this year, so they're not delaying the MBA experience by a year or two. And if they don't, they'll have gone through a bit of that learning curve. They'll be able to prepare stronger candidacy for Round One next season where we know that the admit rates for reapplicants is generally a little bit higher. Yeah, so I think there's absolutely no risk to applying this season, but only if they're admitted to the very top programs they're targeting should they go, is my point.
• 15:06
  Speaker A: I agree. Yeah. I guess I was just going to add that the numbers are off the charts. It sounds like their extracurriculars as an undergrad were strong, a little less so right now. But they have one thing they're doing. It sounds like they started a nonprofit and I'm hoping they have some other activities they engage in, maybe not volunteer work necessarily, but other things they do to be interesting. But I think they absolutely apply now. I don't see why they would wait. They did ask this question, which I wanted to ask, you know, they asked about whether they're at a disadvantage when they go through the recruiting process for those banking jobs because they will have had less full time work experience pre MBA. So when they sit down for those interviews as an MBA student, does that factor in? And I know Elliot on our team kind of chimed in, but do you want to summarize or weigh in on this?
• 15:53
  Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, obviously I reached out to Elliot to have his point of view on this, because I think it's a very interesting you know, in admissions, we shouldn't only focus on can I get admitted? But we should also consider, can I execute on my plans at this point, or does delaying a year give me a better opportunity to do that? And Elliot's sort of answer basically was don't worry about it, go for it. Based on what you have already. Certainly they're targeted for investment banking recruiting, which is very structured and so forth. It will mean that they've got to make the very most of that first quarter, that first year experience and make sure they do the right recruiting and networking and so on and so forth, as well as doing really well in the classes that are relevant to investment banking recruiting. But yeah, Graham, sorry, elliot basically said kick.
• 16:53
  Speaker A: I think, you know, this is a really interesting point. My point of view on this is that the banks will look at them and they won't worry about that at all. This person's already in at a top MBA program, as you say, they'll do all the right things on campus to make it happen. So I think they're happy to take someone with just a few years, 2.75 years of experience into an investment banking program post MBA I'm not worried about that at all.
• 17:17
  Speaker C: I think the advice is really push hard for round two, but with eyes wide open and be prepared that you might be coming back to the table round one next season.
• 17:29
  Speaker A: Yeah, so I think, again, they should apply. They'll probably get in, hopefully, and go off to one of these top schools, but if they don't, yeah, round one next fall is still there for them, so best of luck to them. Yeah, go ahead, sir.
• 17:40
  Speaker C: And we do see candidates Graham that were very busy extracurriculars in their undergrad and because they then moved on into like an investment banking role or something that really made them work some ridiculous hours in the day, that sort of engagement and involvement dropped off. But they've proven through their undergraduate experience that they get involved, they get engaged and so on and so forth. And they talk about having heavy extracurricular involvement during their undergrad whilst getting a 3.94. Maybe they should have backed off a little bit to get that 4.0.
• 18:22
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, what was going on? No, but I think you're right. They work in a role that's probably highly demanding and so they'll have a little bit of leeway. Again, I think they probably are doing some things, so I feel like they'll be fine. But you're right, they have a good track record from undergrad and that'll count. So I want to thank them for sharing their post. Obviously some good dialogue on that post if you go read it on the site. But, yeah, wish them best of luck in round two and we'll see where the chips fall. Let's move on and talk about Wiretaps candidate number two. So our second candidate, Alex, just has two schools on the list and I think they're open to more. But right now they have Cornell Johnson and the Indian School of Business, both of which they applied to, I believe, in the first round. But they're thinking about adding some schools in round two because they're not so sure that they did the best that they could on their applications in round one, that they probably could have spent more time on essays. They're looking to start next fall. They have been working in technology consulting and post MBA. They want to pivot right on into tech directly, working at companies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google or Microsoft. They have a 760 on the GMAT. It's like you're picking all the big scores this week. And they have a 7.2 GPA. I think that's out of ten. This candidate has ten years of work experience, so a little bit older than the average. They're located in Sydney, Australia, originally from India, but they've been living in Sydney for the last seven years working, and they are now an Australian citizen. They would love to land in New York after business school and they're just wondering what schools might they consider? Again, keeping in mind that they want to move into tech and that this is kind of their background in terms of being a little bit older. Pretty good numbers. So Alex, what do you make of their situation and any advice on where they should apply?
• 20:11
  Speaker C: Yeah, I mean it's going to be a little bit challenging applying in Round two. Indian heritage. They will be somewhat considered overrepresented. They've got to differentiate themselves. That experience in Australia absolutely helps do that, I think. And now they're an Australian citizen definitely again potentially helps further differentiate them a little bit. But Round two might be a little bit more challenging than it would have been in round one nevertheless. But I think they need to go all in on Round two. Graham I think they need to really look at some other top 16 programs. They've already applied to Johnson, so maybe hopefully they've got an interview invite from Johnson or waiting for one and maybe they'll be successful at Johnson, but they probably should be looking at somewhere like Michigan. Ross right. Ross I think would be good for their goals, tech and so on and so forth, and several other programs, but really try to identify four or five programs to target in round two with the understanding that they might blank out and then come back heavy in round one next season. Just kind of like the first candidate in that regard. The issue that I have with this candidate is the reverse though, with the other candidate. First candidate, is now the right time? Maybe not maybe in a year or two. This candidate, is now the right time? Well, it's getting a little bit late so they're going to really have to show fit and all that kind of stuff. And if they wait to next season, they'll be doing it with eleven years of experience instead of ten years of experience. So really showing that fit and that they'll fully engage in the programs that they target and also their goals, it all makes sense as a slightly older candidate and so forth. All that's got to come through effectively in their essays. I don't know what a 7.2 GPA is. Graham I think it's probably on the lower end of the sort of spectrum, but I don't know that the 760 GMAT again is ridiculously outstanding.
• 22:26
  Speaker A: I think that seven is a seven out of ten in India or 70%. So it's probably not bad. It depends where they went. For me, everything needs to line up for this person. I think they absolutely you're right, they need to play the Australian angle because they are an Australian citizen, they've been there for seven years. That's going to be a big differentiator from the rest of the kind of more overrepresented Indian applicant pool. They are of a tech kind of background, so that again overrepresented. But I could not agree more. They got to apply now and get it done because they're probably 32 years old at this point.
• 22:59
  Speaker C: Yeah. Their Indian heritage and Tech is like a double over software engineer type thing. So it is going to be a.
• 23:07
  Speaker A: Little bit challenging, I think. The other thing that's a little more challenging from where I sit is they want to land in New York, but then they want to do Tech. So it sounds like they're not looking to go to any of the West Coast schools like a USC Marshall or UCLA or even a UT Austin in know these are schools that place some people in Tech. They obviously could look at NYU, they can look at Cornell, which they have already applied to Cornell. Ross has a decent network in New York City as well. I guess they could look at Duke, which sends a lot of people into the kind of Northeast as well. So there are schools out there that they could look to. They need to get their stuff together. And again, I think that the academics are going to be okay. I'm more concerned about overrepresentation, but it's an interesting case. They do say they have some extracurriculars. It doesn't sound like there's a ton, but I feel like they've got some things they can speak to there. So yeah, it's hard to know where the chips are going to fall here, really, to be honest.
• 24:09
  Speaker C: Yeah, but at the end of the day, they got to go all in round two this season on the understanding that they might need to really readjust and go all in round one next season.
• 24:22
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's fair. I just wonder, would you cast an even wider net? So would you look at sort of US top 25? I don't know what their they didn't sort of speak to this at all because they just listed Cornell and Indian school of businesses, the ones they've already applied to because there are other schools out there. There's the uncs of the world. I mentioned UT Austin, Emory, Indiana. There's schools out there that could help them get into Tech. So I don't know. My view is I guess we would need to be able to talk to this person and find out do they really want to go next year, what's the timeline and things.
• 24:57
  Speaker C: But also those types of programs. That 760 GMAT is going to really be off the charts, shout a lot. I mean it's going to be fantastic. Right? So yeah, top 16. Top 20, yeah.
• 25:11
  Speaker A: Could be a good idea.
• 25:12
  Speaker C: And again, it's because of a couple of different factors that ten years of experience are there at the higher end of the spectrum and potentially overrepresented Tech with India heritage, but also they complement that by having significant experience out of Australia. Don't see so much of that and super GMAT and so forth. It's a bit of a mixed bag here I think overall. But go all in in round two.
• 25:41
  Speaker A: Yeah. And see what happens.
• 25:42
  Speaker C: Potentially come back round one.
• 25:44
  Speaker A: I mean, at the end of the day, when it comes to counting stats, this person's going to be a 760 Australian national. None of the other stuff will really come out right, so it's an interesting quandary in that sense. But in any event, I want to wish them the best of luck and thank them for sharing their profile. Alex, let's move on and talk about wiretaps candidate number three. So, our final candidate this week has six schools on the target list, and they want to start next fall. The schools are Columbia, Georgetown, Indiana, Chicago, Wharton, and Yale. And this person's actually been working in the US Army. That's their kind of pre MBA experience. They want to end up in consulting after business school, looking at Bain, BCG, Deloitte, Ernst and Young, KPMG, McKinsey and PwC, they have a GRE score of 327, a GPA of 3.64. They've been working for four and a half years in the military, and they're located in North Carolina. They say that they want to land in Chicago after business school, but they also mention that they're applying to all of these schools dual degree MBA, international relations programs, and that they speak Mandarin and their wife does as well. And that they've actually spent some time abroad in China. And that they're hoping that after working for a bit in the US, that they could transfer to the Hong Kong office of one of these consulting firms and put their Mandarin to use. And I guess their wife could probably find a job, too, if she's fluent in Mandarin as well. So that's kind of the background here. Alex, what do you make of this? Because there's kind of two different factors. There's the army background, which we see a lot know, veterans applying to business school, but then there's this Mandarin piece, which sort of adds another wrinkle.
• 27:24
  Speaker C: Graham, you forgot we got a review.
• 27:27
  Speaker A: Oh, we did? Oh, that's right. Well, I can mention that. Well, you think it was from this?
• 27:31
  Speaker C: No, no, I just think we need to talk about the review.
• 27:34
  Speaker A: I gotta find it.
• 27:35
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 27:35
  Speaker A: Well, why don't you weigh in on this candidate? I'll share the review.
• 27:38
  Speaker C: What I thought was good about that review, that they said it's the best 50 minutes you can spend your time. So I'm thinking we're only going to do about 30, 35 minutes.
• 27:49
  Speaker A: Well, this weekend.
• 27:50
  Speaker C: Pause for a little while.
• 27:51
  Speaker A: Yeah. So I found the review they say must listen for MBA applicants. There's no part of the MBA process that isn't covered here, and there's no better way to spend 50 minutes. This is a must listen for folks applying for an MBA. So there you go. Yeah. Really nice review we got. I totally forgot about that.
• 28:06
  Speaker C: And we've been stressing that when we go past the 30 minutes mark, we're in trouble. We could have a bit of a break.
• 28:16
  Speaker A: Well, some of them are longer than others. But anyway, it was a. Great review. But tell me about this candidate, though.
• 28:21
  Speaker C: What should they no, this candidate, quite frankly, obviously we don't know a lot about their military experience, particularly other than their US army signal, but let's make the assumption this is quality military experience. I just love the combination of strong military experience and having language skills, Mandarin and so forth, and combine that with a top MBA experience.
• 28:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, there are a few people who speak Mandarin, so yeah, it's probably useful.
• 28:59
  Speaker C: In this world in which we currently live. I think the skill set of this person would be absolutely outstanding or could be absolutely outstanding.
• 29:10
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 29:11
  Speaker C: So I'm a huge fan of this combination, I think. So I'm hoping they do have strong military experience. I'm hoping they have a really good sense of their goal focus and what they want to do. They talk about wanting to transfer to a Hong Kong consulting office after a few years in an office in the States. But what is their long term vision? I'd love to know sort of what they're thinking beyond consulting, because that would really tell an interesting story and how it all works together. I mean, I think their numbers are know, they're in the ballpark for the top programs. They're close to the medians, if not at the median, whether it's the GRE or the GPA and so forth. The length of experience absolutely right on the money, it's standard. But to me this whole Mandarin twist, as it were, adds an element that really sets them apart a little bit.
• 30:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. I mean, I guess like you say, it'd be good to know more about the military experience and the long term kind of plan, but I feel like that's know, let's assume the military stuff lines up. Well, if they can make the case for why they want to pivot over to Hong Kong or wherever they would want to be, then there's a lot I mean, jeez, like you were like, this is a valued skill set that they have with language, with the numbers. I guess what I was thinking about with this candidate is that they're both solid 327 on the GRE, three six, four GPA. Right. So super solid. They have a range of schools on their target list, which I feel like we need to mention. I mean, they've got Columbia, which is an M seven school. They've got Georgetown in Indiana. They've got Wharton and Booth. So there's kind of a mix here. Yale somewhere in the middle there. Do you think that this is the right mix? And I think it's somewhat being driven by where their kind of policy schools are or the international relations schools are. It has to I mean, that's got to be playing a role, I guess.
• 31:25
  Speaker C: And you know, they're picking from different tiers, so they're spreading their yeah, so you've got Wharton and then Columbia and Chicago, and then you've got Georgetown, then you've got kelly well, I've got Yale, so Yale sort of between Columbia. Booth and so they spread their risk. It might be related to their interests in international relations. But that brings another interesting question, Graham, to you. Should they be pursuing a dual degree? Is that necessary?
• 32:04
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it sounds like it's a passion of theirs. Right. They've got the language skill. They want to go to this region of the world. And I think before we came on air, you and I were talking about how you actually mentioned something to the extent of in the circles they want to be moving in, maybe that degree will have a lot of weight. Having that international relations piece mean, I would say they probably don't need like if their goal is to go work for McKinsey in Chicago and then transfer to Hong Kong, they don't need it. But they might be better off having even a more formalized certificate in their language skills or something, or doing like a second master's in Mandarin or something. Right. So it's not necessary, but I think we don't know enough about their long term plan and what they want to do. So maybe there are reasons for it. Maybe they want to be an ambassador or there could be any number of things that they might want to do that it could become more relevant. So, again, I like this candidacy. I think they're going to be competitive at the schools on their list. They've got their work cut out for them, all these deadlines coming up and dual degrees, et cetera. But I like what we've got here. And they didn't talk about extracurriculars, but they're in the military, so that's kind of expected to be a little bit lighter. So I think they've got a lot going for them and they're going to find success at some combination of programs here.
• 33:20
  Speaker C: Can you speak any mandarin?
• 33:22
  Speaker A: Graham not a word. No, unfortunately. No. No.
• 33:25
  Speaker C: And I recognize it's mean, it is crazy. It's stuff that I can't do. It's like playing a musical instrument or speaking particular language. I have so much admiration for people that can do it. It's crazy.
• 33:38
  Speaker A: Yeah, it is amazing. Especially, I mean, especially a language like Mandarin, which is just so different from Western languages that we speak. So, yeah, definitely kudos to this person. Thanks for sharing their profile and hopefully they'll keep us posted. Alex, great job picking these out. We had some really interesting topics of discussion come up as a result of these three candidacies, which is always our goal. So we'll do it all next week if you're willing. Alex and, yeah, thanks again for your help with this.
• 34:02
  Speaker C: Very good. Stay safe, everyone. Take care.