Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 350—332 GRE, India Engineer. Overcoming 2.4 GPA. Johnson vs Darden

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MBA Wire Taps 350—332 GRE, India Engineer. Overcoming 2.4 GPA. Johnson vs Darden · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:15
  Speaker A: Welcome to the clear admit MBA admissions podcast. I'm Graham Richmond, and this is your wiretaps for Monday, April 29, 2024. Are you looking for an MBA program where you'll be more than just a number? Vanderbilt Business offers a personalized learning experience to help each student reach their unique career goals. Whether you're looking to switch careers entirely or accelerate the path you're on, the Vanderbilt MBA program will provide you with the individual support you need to propel your career forward. Vanderbilt is currently waiving their $200 application fee for MBA wiretaps. Listeners to learn more about the Vanderbilt MBA program at. To claim your application fee waiver, visit business vanderbilt.edu clearadmit. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, how are things this week?
• 1:00
  Speaker B: Very good, thank you, Graham.
• 1:02
  Speaker A: So, yeah, it's definitely spring like, getting a bit more spring like in these parts. Hopefully the same is true for you. But what's going on with the MBA admissions world? Cause we're. I'm seeing stuff on the website, lots of posts about round three. So what's going on?
• 1:15
  Speaker B: Yeah, we're in the middle of round three, and as we talked about a little bit before, that's a much shorter round. So, actually, next week, we're gonna get a load of round three. Decisions roll out for schools like Darden, McDonough, Tuck, Haas, McCombs, and Ross for next week. So, yeah, and then there's also several people still on waitlists waiting to hear back. So there's still quite a lot of activity seeing Colombia sort of making some moves in terms of switching people from one status to a waitlist status and, you know, whatever. So I'm not quite sure what Columbia's up to, but there is a lot going on.
• 2:00
  Speaker A: Yeah. In fairness to Columbia, this is the first year that they flipped from being kind of rolling to having these rounds. And, yeah, it's been. There's been some growing pains, we could say.
• 2:09
  Speaker B: It's a new experience for them. You can tell that.
• 2:11
  Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. So the other thing is that I have heard, I think we've said, but across the board, application volume is up this year, so probably not a great year to be applying in the late rounds, unfortunately. But it's also, you know, schools are competing with each other more and more. So there's probably going to be some movement to come as scholarship dollars are thrown out there for candidates and people, you know, get in off of waitlists, and I think there'll be some movement to come, is what I'm trying to say.
• 2:40
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
• 2:41
  Speaker A: So a couple of events that I've been talking about, our first virtual event that kicks off our kind of season of virtual events for the new application cycle is going to be on May 8. That's a Wednesday, and it'll be at noon Eastern. And it'll include five schools. So I'm going to be sitting down as mc to talk with Berkeley, Haas, Duke, Fuqua, Emery, Guisewetta, Georgetown, McDonough, and University of Texas McCombs. So those five schools are going to join me. We're going to ask them all about. It's what we call our application overview series. So we'll just talk about their application process, what they kind of look for, how they run admissions, and those. That's the first in a series of three events that we'll have that are virtual over the course of the month of May. And you'll see other schools joining us, including Gale and Uva, Darden, Wharton, Columbia InSEAd, London business School. There are more Carnegie Mellon. So it's going to be a busy month. And we do those basically every Wednesday, although we're taking a break. We're not doing one on Wednesday, May 15, because we're going to be in Chicago in person doing an NBA fair on that day. And that's going to have. Now, Alex, there are 21 schools joining us because we had a school jump on board that I thought was gonna come, but I wasn't sure, so I hadn't been mentioning them before. So then that's London business school. So they've jumped into the mix. So that's gonna be an exciting event. And I forgot I need to give ways for people to sign up for these different events. So if you wanna join our virtual webinars, just go to bit ly caspringwebinars. And if you wanna come out and join us in Chicago, you gotta sign up. It's a free event, but you need to sign up because it's gonna probably sell out, as my guess, given that space is limited. So go to bit ly cachicagofair. All lowercase, all one word. So, Alex. Yeah. Lots going on in May, events wise.
• 4:34
  Speaker B: Nice to see that you got Wharton on the virtual events, Graham.
• 4:37
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. They're coming virtually as of now. They're still not coming to Chicago. I heard something about it's like a designated survivor situation. You know, if we're going to gather that many great MBA programs in one place, we got to leave one back, just in case, you know, something were to happen. But no, I don't know, I'm still waiting to hear about Chicago with them.
• 4:56
  Speaker B: That nice pool you have as an alum.
• 5:00
  Speaker A: Yeah, I know. Well, I'm working on it, but we'll see. In any event, I'm so excited. I mean, we have 21 schools in Chicago and it's, I mean, it's going to be. Yeah, a lot of fun.
• 5:07
  Speaker B: And this is a first for clear admit, an applicant facing event in the real world. So I'm really intrigued to see how it goes.
• 5:17
  Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, and I. For. Yeah, and I forgot to say we're going to do some panels. I don't think I mentioned this because I don't think I knew this last week or maybe, maybe I did. We're doing a panel about careers at the fair and we've got the head of HR and recruiting from Bain coming to join us for that panel. So, yeah, we're going to learn a little bit about consulting and strategy consulting at, you know, a very top firm and how they recruit and stuff. So. Should be fun. Yeah. So it's going to be an interesting.
• 5:41
  Speaker B: Whose idea was that?
• 5:42
  Speaker A: Was that your idea? I don't think. I was at the staff meeting when that idea was floated.
• 5:47
  Speaker B: Yeah. You taking the day off, mate. You take the day off and I.
• 5:51
  Speaker A: Have ideas and then I chased it down.
• 5:53
  Speaker B: So.
• 5:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's going to be fun. And we've got some other tricks up our sleeve too, other than that. Over on the website, we did run a couple of admission sips that are super useful for people who are in the throes of deciding where to go to school. So the first one is, can I negotiate a scholarship for business school? And we all know the answer is yes. In most cases, as we've seen people doing and sharing information about on the website, we also had a second admissions tip, which is, should scholarship money impact your choice of business school? Which I think is a great question to ask because I, sometimes I do feel like it's, it can be overweighted. Um, and we talk a little bit about that sometimes when we talk about our decision wire posts here on the show. So check out those admissions tips if you are in the midst of thinking about scholarship dollars. We also did continue to feature more real humans alumni. These are MBA graduates who are out there in the workforce doing amazing things and we profile them on our site so that you, if you're tuning in, can get a better sense as to what the future holds for you if you head off to business school. So we caught up with Danny from Kellogg. He is now at Google and he does strategy and operations. He's a strategy and operations program manager. Danny's originally from Washington state and had been a mechanical engineer, but made the pivot into tech. And he said one thing he would absolutely do again as a part of the job search. He said, I firmly believe that my reps paid off when it came to networking. There were many times when I talked to companies that I wasn't necessarily interested in working for, but I use that opportunity to just sort of practice my pitch, sell my skills and field difficult questions. So that's an interesting piece of advice, Alex. Right. Just kind of practice makes perfect when it comes to even networking.
• 7:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, I like that. Yeah.
• 7:35
  Speaker A: Yeah. We also caught up with Jamie from Fuqua over at Duke, and Jamie graduated back in 21, works at Accenture, is a senior strategy consultant there, originally from New Jersey, and had worked in financial services. And we asked again, like, what's one thing you would do, one thing that you would change actually, or do differently as part of the job search? And Jamie says, not recruiting for a full time job during my second year of business school was a luxury, but I've since considered that summer internship is kind of a unique time to try something new and different. So those opportunities, such as interning at a startup or scouting for a VC fund or even working internationally, are incredibly valuable and should not be deprioritized just because they may be less established or if a full time job offer is less of a guarantee. So this is interesting because James, Jamie, I think, did the summer at Accenture and then went to Accenture, right. But at the same time, I guess there's just this recognition maybe after the fact that, wow, I could have done something different and probably still landed on my feet with a full time job. It's an interesting quandary, right, because some of these firms are hiring the lion's share of their full time folks from the internship pool. But what do you make of that, Alex?
• 8:46
  Speaker B: I'm wondering, was Jamie an accenture coming into the NBA and doing the MBA and going back to Accenture? Is that what they were doing?
• 8:55
  Speaker A: No, no, they were in financial services, if memory serves. Yeah. So, so different. Yeah.
• 9:00
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I think certainly the least risky route is doing internship where you want to get your full time experience.
• 9:08
  Speaker A: Yeah. Especially, I mean, if you're trying to pivot in, I think, yeah, it can be challenging. So in any event. Yeah. But interesting advice nonetheless. I do think that it's good for people to know that there are these other opportunities you don't have to do the sort of boilerplate internship, you can do something else, but just recognize that may make it harder to get into some of the firms you want. Afterwards, we then talked with Sylvia, who went to Rochester Simon school and works at Bain as a consultant. Sylvia is from Baltimore, and you will never guess how she made a living before going to business school. She was an artist and was doing, I guess, had been working in the gaming industry, so maybe some gambling and stuff. So completely non traditional background ends up at Rochester and now at Bain. And we asked, what's one thing you absolutely would do again as part of the job search? And Sylvia says, start casing early and really crush it. One of my proudest moments was when one of my interviewers complimented me on my case during the interview. The case interview is everything for consulting. So if you are serious about consulting, be prepared. So that's kind of interesting. I mean, I, you know, I recognize casing is really important for these consulting firms, but that's a hard line stance there. Like, you gotta be ready. Like, it's the most important thing is what she's saying.
• 10:23
  Speaker B: Yeah, but recognize that they did a huge pivot.
• 10:27
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 10:27
  Speaker B: So I can really see how important that was for this candidate. And it makes perfect sense. So pivoting from, I guess, the gaming industry into consulting. Very, very good and very well done.
• 10:42
  Speaker A: Yeah. Interesting. And then finally we caught up with Jen from combs, who graduated in 23 and now works at Tesla as a supply chain program manager. It's interesting because Jen had worked in healthcare and pharma for like seven years, originally from the great state of Pennsylvania, but went to McCombs and then landed at Tesla. And we say, you know, again, one of the questions we ask is, what is a piece of advice that you wish you had been given during your MBA? And Jen says, make it a goal to spend time with every classmate, no matter your class size. You never know how you can support each other, whether with a case analysis this week or in decades from now, for advice. So that's kind of a nice thought, too. And I think I would have had trouble at Wharton doing that. I mean, there were a lot of people, but I think the sentiment is definitely a good one.
• 11:27
  Speaker B: Yeah, maybe set up a goal of hanging out with 100 mbas in your class over a period of time. That would be very definitely.
• 11:34
  Speaker A: So anyway, that's it over on the website. I love those real humans. It's just nice to see people landing on their feet and all the great things people can do with the degree and all the different things and the pivots and stuff that people make. So any event, if you want to reach out to Alex and I, you can write to us@infocaredmit.com dot use the subject line wiretaps. Other than that, Alex, I suggest that we dive into this week's candidates.
• 11:56
  Speaker B: Yeah, let's kick on.
• 11:57
  Speaker A: All right, so this is wiretaps candidate number one. So our first candidate number one here is applying to only one school, or at least that's what it looked like when they posted their entry, because they only listed one target school, and that is MIT Sloan. We did later find out that it's just that MIT's their total favorite and that they may look at others, but for now it's MIT Sloan. They want to start school in the fall of 25. They mentioned that pre MBA, their career has been SDE three, which I had no idea what that is. We'll get to that in a second because I think you talked to them in the comments about their job. They do want to get into tech and maybe nonprofit. After business school. They talk about working for a company like Apple, Google, or Microsoft. This person, I will. Spoiler alert. They do currently work in the kind of nonprofit industry, and they're really fascinated about the impact that technology can have in that domain. They have a GRE score that is a 332. Their GPA is a 3.06, but it's been translated from another scale, so we'll get into that, too. They have six years of work experience, and again, as I said, it's been in nonprofit, sustainable kind of sector. They have had a couple of promotions and even one employee of the quarter at some point. And they also have a fair amount of extracurricular, both during and post university in sports and net impact with net impact. So that's kind of the basic background. But, Alex, do you want to shed some light here? I mean, you had some back and forth with this candidate, and in particular about, like, their GPA, which they listed on the US scale as a 306. But you found out some other details here, right?
• 13:40
  Speaker B: Sure. But what is the acronym stand for?
• 13:43
  Speaker A: I don't even know. I mean, they didn't. They just talked about. I mean, I can look it up, but they basically, you know, talked about how they work in developing technology for NGO's, but it's unclear.
• 13:53
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I really like the work that they do. As they've described it.
• 13:57
  Speaker A: I'm gonna say it's like software design engineer three is my. That being my guess. That must mean something. Yeah, but software. Sorry, software development engineer is what I think it means. Yeah, but. So it's probably they're like a high level software development engineer, but they're working with NGO's.
• 14:11
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Just be careful with acronyms because ADCOM is not necessarily gonna go look it up if they don't already know. But, yeah, to me, this candidate looks like they've got some really interesting experience. I mean, they're coming from an overrepresented population, I mean, basically coming from India. So they're going to have to be cautious of that. This type of experience might separate them a little bit, but software engineers out of India are quite a popular entryway into the MBA at top tier programs in the US. And not surprisingly, Sloane's at the top of their list. List. Obviously, they got to expand that list out a little bit. Target four or five programs. They've really got to target round one, I think, because of this idea that they're coming from India as a software engineer. So target round one, target four or five schools in round one. So Haas would come to mind, maybe even Wharton, but add a couple of others into that list. So, yeah, let's assume their work experience does really show that impact and growth that we really like to focus upon. And I like the idea that they're focused on the nonprofit sector because that does help differentiate them a little bit and that does allow them, I think, a certain level of additional impact. And if they then continue that along with the MBA in the longer run, larger, broader impact on society, etc, etc. That can be a very good thing. The super GRE at 332. So having a 3.06 GPA does sort of stand out a little bit. But then obviously through our conversations on applywire, it turns out they actually have a first class degree in engineering from a top school in India. So I just want to make it clear that's just quickly converting to a GPA without adding the important context of the quality of the degree and the class rank or designation, like first class honours can be risky. So make sure that it's clear as a candidate that they did well as an undergrad, as well as complementing that with a strong gre, then I think they. I do like this candidacy. Graham, overall.
• 16:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think they leave out the 306 and only use. I mean, unless school is demanding that they. Most schools at the top here that we kind of work with are not asking you necessarily to convert. They might ask you to use that world Education Service transcript thing that. Where they'll, they'll kind of, there's like a service you can use that sort of interprets and converts your GPA. But, yeah, this person went to what they say is a tier one engineering institute in India with no curve grading. And, you know, they had a first class honors. So that. That sounds a lot better than when you say they had a 306 gpA. So in any event. Yeah, but I think this person, I will say they're still an indian engineer, possibly male. We don't know for sure, I guess. And so, yeah, overrepresented. So they got to apply early. And as you say, they need to cast a wider net than just MIT. Do you think they need to cast a net a little further afield just in case? I mean, in terms of, like, I mean, the schools you mentioned adding, you know, Wharton or Haas are highly competitive, too. Right. So do they need to look at anything further down the list? Or, I mean, what. Or do you say, wait, because you don't necessarily want to be in the second round as an indian engineer, software engineer applying to business school?
• 17:51
  Speaker B: No, you're exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. So you make a very good point. The next tier down, maybe look at programs like Ros and a couple of others in that top 16 tier.
• 18:01
  Speaker A: Yeah, even a tepper we've seen does really well with, you know, with tech placement, which is what they're focused on, too. But, yeah, so just somewhere in that universe of top schools. But, yeah, casting a wide net would make sense. In any event, I like this candidacy, though. I think there is a lot of potential, and I especially am interested in the work they've been doing with, with Ng. And. Yeah, so there's potential here for sure, but apply early, and good thing they have a high test score, too, which is nice.
• 18:26
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
• 18:27
  Speaker A: All right, so let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two. So our second candidate is a ways off from applying, it turns out. And so as a result, they have 14 schools on the target list. And they really, I mean, it sort of runs the gamut, but they've got, you know, Berkeley, Tepper, Cornell, Duke, Harvard, Indiana, Kellogg, Ross. I mean, I'm not going to read the whole list. It's just. It's a. It's a sort of variety of top 20 MBA programs. And this person's been working in government. They actually went to one of the service academies, which we'll get into in a moment. So they're working in government. They mentioned that it's sort of operations management is what they're focused on. But also they seem to be a little bit involved in higher ed. I don't know if that's an outside activity. We'll get into that in a moment. They want to use the MBA to get into consulting and maybe venture capital. But initially they mentioned companies like Bain, BCG and McKinsey. They have a GPA that's fairly low. It's a 2.4. Now this is from one of the service academies, which are notorious for not having great inflation and for being pretty tough, but that's still a low GPA. They have a few years of work experience and they say that they're not going to be able to applying for a while. They're going to try to start in the fall of 28. So they have a lot of time and they're looking to get ahead of the curve by seeking advice from us early on. But they do mention that, you know, they had some personal and medical challenges when they went to undergrad, which resulted in that two, four. They're hoping, they say, to offset the low GPA by attaining the CFP and PMP certifications. They also hope to complete a master's in education and to also establish for profit and nonprofit organizations, score high on the GMAT and accumulate more work experience. So there's a lot there. Alex, I mean, what do you make of this? This is kind of rare that we get someone so early on, but they do have a bit of a red flag with the GPA. So what do you make of this? Yeah, it's tricky. Yeah.
• 20:28
  Speaker B: I mean, obviously that's the huge sort of elephant in the room for this candidate. There's no doubt about that. So basically they're planning ahead maybe two or three years ahead. And that's what they've got to overcome, is getting the ADCOM to be convinced that they will be really successful in the academic piece of the MBA program. To the extent that they can do that, that should be a huge sort of goal for them at this point. So how do they do that? Obviously, if they get a really, really good test score, that's going to help. So really prepping very well for the GMAT would be smart. Leaving plenty of time to retake the GMAT if and when they need to retake it so that they can get a score above the medians of the schools that they're targeting. That will be important.
• 21:39
  Speaker A: Agreed. Yeah.
• 21:40
  Speaker B: So then they got to, you know, take other steps. You know, maybe it's. It's less about the professional certificates, but more about sort of maybe some analytic classwork, economics or statistics or whatever, doing really well, doing MBA, math, or HBS core or something like that, doing really, really well, explaining the context of their undergraduate GPA. Because even, you know, if it's from the service academy or wherever it's from, it is still very low at 2.4. So that's their huge challenge, obviously, along the way, get great work experience, show impact and growth at work, do some really interesting things outside of work, showing impact and growth in broader sort of society. All that stuff will help. But they're different. That's a different part of their application profile than their academic profile. So just because you've done really well at work, if you've got a poor academic profile, you've got to fix the poor academic profile. You can't assume the great work experience compensates for the poor academic profile.
• 22:57
  Speaker A: Yeah, agreed.
• 22:58
  Speaker B: So that would be my major piece of advice, is really what can they do to mitigate a very low GPA? And there are things that they can do, but it's still going to be a big challenge. But to the extent that they can at the same time do some great things at work and outside of work, that's going to really help flesh out the rest of their profile, right? Yeah, but, yeah, it's going to be challenging.
• 23:30
  Speaker A: Yeah. I just want to really underline the point that the poster, the person who shared their profile here, they seemed to maybe be under the impression that by doing these professional certifications that that would somehow help with the GPA issue. And as you correctly point out, I think the best thing they can do with the GPA is take outside coursework, whether it's, you know, business fundamentals from GMAC or MBA, math or HBS core, and then, as you say, get a high test score. I mean, those things alone would probably be where I would focus my energies. The only other question mark I have about this candidacy is that it is a little strange. Like, they went to a service academy, but it's uncommonly what they're doing for their work right now. I guess they're working in the government, they didn't really share too much about that, so they shared a lot about how they're going to go out and start a nonprofit and do lots of outside activities and work on their test score. But I just want to make sure that they keep their eyes on having a positive work experience and growing in that domain as well. But, yeah, it's sort of too soon to say what sort of target schools they could end up focusing on because if they come back with like, an amazing test score and they do some outside coursework, and work's going great and they're outside activities. Then you say, yeah, these are a great list of target schools. They have mostly top 20 schools here, but it's really going to come down to which part of the top 20 they focus on based on where the numbers lead us. But in any event, it's an interesting thing. And I guess I will say it's great that they're starting so early and trying to address this GPA issue.
• 24:59
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, absolutely. And it is solvable, but it's going to be very, very. It's going to be tricky.
• 25:06
  Speaker A: Exactly. So I want to thank them for posting, and hopefully this advice serves them well over the coming years because they have a few years here before they would be starting school. Right. So they've got time.
• 25:17
  Speaker B: What do you think of them doing an MPP grain or whatever that?
• 25:21
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think. I mean, it's okay. I mean, we've seen there are a lot candidates who apply to business school who have another master's degree. And I guess if this person's pursuing it, I would hope that they're pursuing it, you know, part time while working or something. Cause they. They need work experience if they've just kind of, you know, they don't have enough yet. Right. So they. But it could be okay. I mean, I think the grades are gonna be really important in that, too. So that is another point you're raising. That's really important. If they have like a 40 in their master's degree, that's another sign that they can point to.
• 25:47
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 25:48
  Speaker A: So that would be smart, too.
• 25:49
  Speaker B: But a couple of things that I would caution, though, is one, MPP, it's not going to be analytically rigorous as much as maybe some other types of programs. So they're still going to need to show that they have that sort of analytic part of that profile. So only do the MPP if it aligns with their goals and with their professional experience and what they're planning to do and make sure that it still leaves room for then doing a top tier MBA program. So there's a couple of risks that you run with doing a master's degree. One is, well, why do you need an MBA now you've done your master's degree. It's getting you where you want to be. So you've got to justify that. But secondly, is it a rigorous experience that's going to help them overcome this 2.4 g?
• 26:49
  Speaker A: Right? Yeah. Great points. So best of luck to them as they kind of figure this out and move forward. But again, they're starting early, which is always good news. Right? So. All right, so let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number three. So our final candidate this week is once again a decision wire entry or comes from a decision wire entry that you've selected. Alex, I love these, even though they're. They're torturous to debate and stuff because it's hard sometimes to give people advice. But this person applied to Cornell, Emory, Indiana, Michigan, MIT, UCLA, UNC, USC, UT, Austin and Darden. So, man, they were busy. So they put on all those applications and they got some really good news. I mean, they ended up getting into Cornell with a $40,000 scholarship. We'll come back to that one in a moment. They got into with 60 grand. Indiana gave him 80. They got into Ross and Anderson but no money there. They did get into UNC, King and Flagler with 110,000. Marshall admitted them but no money. And then Darden, University of Virginia Darden admitted them with 82,000. So that's kind of where they stand. And they do mention that they are. That they had a 325 on the GRE, that they want to work in consulting. And they say, I'm 30. I'm a 30 plus year old international applicant and I'm hoping to career pivot to consulting. They say they're not sure if MdB would be possible, considering their age and background. Scholarship is a huge consideration for me, and I would eliminate schools that are given zero scholarship dollars. Prestige is also important if I happen to work outside of the US. So the only other piece of information I want to share, Alex, and then I'll let you kind of weigh in, is that they went back to Cornell and did some, you know, negotiating, and they ended up getting Cornell to give them the same amount as Darden. So now they're really. They say that they're struggling between Darden and Johnson. So. So we kind of narrowed the field here really quickly, but that's what they say. And they, again, they want to work in strategy consulting. They'd love to work at MBB, but they're not sure possible given their age. So weigh in on these things. What do you think they should do? And can you work at McKinsey if you're over 30?
• 29:05
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think you can. I know there are a couple of issues with this. I think if you've negotiated with the school and they've come back with a better offer, are you obliged to take that offer? So I would want to know sort of how that negotiation went, because if they went to Cornell in this case and said, look, I've got this offer from Darden. If you match it, I want, I want to be at Cornell. And if they did match it, I think they've got to go to Cornell. So I'd be curious. I do think that that has to be a piece of the advice here is, how was that negotiation pitched?
• 29:43
  Speaker A: Don't they say all's fair in love, war and admissions? No.
• 29:47
  Speaker B: Yeah, it is, but it isn't. At the end of the day, you got to stick to your word.
• 29:51
  Speaker A: Right? Right.
• 29:54
  Speaker B: I would be a little bit, I'm a big believer if you're negotiating with the school and the school comes through, then that should give them a little bit of an edge there. Now, on the pure basis of it, Darden versus Johnson for consulting, I would have pitched towards Darden. I mean, it's case method. It's renowned for its consulting training. Basically, if you think of one industry where Darden really excels in terms of preparation, you would probably argue it's consulting. If you look at Johnson and if you think of one industry where it excels, you're probably thinking investment banking over consulting. Not to say that Johnson doesn't prepare you for consulting, but banking is probably its sort of niche, as it were. So with all things being equal, I probably would have suggested Darden. But then you bring in this idea that you're an international student. Does the Ivy brand give a little bit of, a little bit of cachet or whatever in the region, the world that they're from, that may come into play a little bit? Graham? I think so. I would want to know how active the alumni networks of each of these programs are in that particular region to see if there's a potential influence there. So I would say it depends. And I would also be interested in how they negotiated that additional money at Johnson. Yeah, I think that both great programs.
• 31:38
  Speaker A: By the way, I mean, I think you've given a great analysis. Yeah, these are both great schools, arguably in the same sort of tier, both close knit. They actually offer, I think, a pretty similar student experience because they're both in these great kind of close knit, really amazing college towns. I mean, Charlottesville and Ithaca are really nice settings for studying and for building relationships with your classmates. So they're not going to go wrong. And I would have said, yeah, I think the consulting focus does make you think of Darden and the case method, and then they dropped that little line about, as you say, the international element. And so I think you're right. They need to do some due diligence and investigate, well, where are some of those markets that might work outside of the United States and what's the kind of presence like? And I think in fairness, they probably want to look at are there events in these cities that they might work in that are kind of Ivy League events where you've got the likes of Cornell and Penn and Harvard and Yale teaming up to do things? Does that kind of expand the network in some ways? And they need to investigate that because that is where you might see Cornell moving ahead when it comes to kind of the reputation and the international kind of recognition and stuff. So if they kind of are riding the iv wave. Right. So that's something they need to figure out, this candidate. Yeah, but I will. Going back to that earlier point though, I honestly, you see lots of people working at McKinsey, Bain and BCG who are a bit older, especially if they have kind of interesting experience that might be brought to bear in the consulting work that they're put on. So I'm not worried about that. I think that they can, they'll recruit at a number of firms. They'll probably have the other firms on the list, too. But I think they shouldn't avoid MBB because they think they're not qualified because of their age or something. That would be a mistake. So I think they have to go for it.
• 33:26
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 33:27
  Speaker A: In any event, great problem to have. They got into so many schools. I would love to know how they managed to apply to so many in the first place. And I hope they got their recommenders some gifts after that process. But in any event, yeah. So, wishing them the best of luck as they make this decision. We'll see how it turns out. Alex, thanks for picking out these candidates as always. And, yeah, another week has gone by. We'll do it all again next week and. Yeah, thanks again, Alex.
• 33:53
  Speaker B: Yeah, very good. Stay safe, everyone. Take care.