Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 417—3.1 GPA, health issues. Electrical engineer, Product manager. Tuck vs Fuqua.

Transcript

MBA Wire Taps 417—3.1 GPA, health issues. Electrical engineer, Product manager. Tuck vs Fuqua. · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:18
  Speaker A: Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA admissions Podcast. I'm Graham Richmond, and this is your Wiretaps for Monday, March 31, 2025. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, how was your vacation?
• 0:30
  Speaker B: Oh, very good, thank you. Graham had a really good few days down in Malaga.
• 0:36
  Speaker A: Yeah, sounds nice.
• 0:37
  Speaker B: I reckon it must be the most southerly point of Europe, but if not.
• 0:43
  Speaker A: Close enough, well, there's got to be parts of. No, wait, Greece must have some parts that are like. Crete is further south.
• 0:49
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah. But I don't count the island in the Mediterranean. Right.
• 0:53
  Speaker A: Okay. All right, all right, all right.
• 0:56
  Speaker B: Absolutely fantastic.
• 0:57
  Speaker A: Yeah, cool. You missed a lot. You know, there was a lot happening. Although I know that you're such a workaholic that you still kept one eye on the wires. So I have no qualms about asking you for an update on what the heck's been happening recently on Livewire.
• 1:11
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, I mean, it's been really busy, especially, you know, the week that we're recording. I mean, we record on Thursdays mostly. And this week, yesterday we saw lots of decisions, obviously, coming out from Kellogg and Harvard. Anderson was another. Another one that we saw a lot yesterday. Some Foster and McCombs, LBs, HAAs. They're all scheduled for this week, Correct. That we're recording. And then for next week, it's Wharton and Stamford amongst the top programs. And I think next week probably concludes the real big activity for what we call decision weeks. But, yeah, there's a lot going on. Hopefully plenty of listeners getting some great results.
• 1:57
  Speaker A: Yeah. So for folks tuning in, that means this week, when you're listening this week, as you said, Wharton, Stanford. Is MIT this week as well.
• 2:04
  Speaker B: Yes. Sorry, Sloan. Absolutely. And Sloan's usually in that sort of latter end, so. Yeah, absolutely.
• 2:11
  Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. So, yeah, I want to wish everyone the best of luck. Hopefully people have multiple acceptances and we'll get into some of those situations. We're going to talk about a decision wire entry this week where someone's grappling with a couple of choices. Otherwise, Alex, we're still running a. Our spring applicant survey. As I've said before, that's kind of what keeps the lights on at Clear Admit. So please take the survey if you can. Bit ly ca survey 25.
• 2:37
  Speaker B: I'm not sure about this metaphor that you use.
• 2:40
  Speaker A: You don't believe.
• 2:41
  Speaker B: They're not keeping my mics on. I'm paying Amy, Bill.
• 2:44
  Speaker A: Well, yeah, that's a good point. That we all are kind of remote, you know, so that. Yeah, fair enough. Okay. But It's a metaphor.
• 2:49
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 2:51
  Speaker A: The other thing is that we're still. Now people can sign up for our events in May. We have a series of versions, virtual events, which are meant to be kind of an entree into the application process. It's our application overview series. So we're going to be sitting down with all the top schools. Stanford, Wharton, Harvard, INSEAD, LBs, Tuck, Duke, Cornell. I mean I'm not going to list them all, but we're going to sit down with all these schools over a course of four different one hour webinars. May 6th and 7th and then again May 20th and 21st. You can sign up for those by going to bit ly appoverview25.
• 3:28
  Speaker B: So those and quite frank, frankly, Graham, if people are listening and they're planning to apply next season, these are must attend events.
• 3:35
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 3:36
  Speaker B: To really get the application process started for next season, I would think. And if they sign up, Graham, and aren't able to attend, do they get a recording?
• 3:46
  Speaker A: Yeah, we record them and you get. Yeah, but you have to be signed up to get access to the recording. So definitely sign up. Yeah, I love, I mean I try to put the admissions officers on the spot a bit, ask them questions about their process and what people need to be doing at this time of year as they gear up to apply. So this, this is great. If you're kicking off your applications for next cycle. We also, as I've been saying the last several weeks, we're doing our big in person event in Boston. People have started to sign up for that. You can go to bit ly mbafair 2025. That's going to be fun. I probably don't need to say too much about that, but all the top schools are going to be there along with alumni from their programs. And yeah, it's going to be a good night of networking panels and a sort of fair where you can go up and talk to the schools. So that'll be fun too.
• 4:29
  Speaker B: Yeah. This is our second in person event. Last season it was in Chicago. Absolutely fantastic. So coming back this season in Boston.
• 4:39
  Speaker A: Yeah, brilliant.
• 4:40
  Speaker B: And you're being hosted by who? Is it Sloan or is it Harvard?
• 4:44
  Speaker A: Mit? Sloan is hosting the fair. Yeah, they have this beautiful, beautiful modern business school building and we've got the run of it. So it's going to be a lot of fun. Let's see in the news. Esade, one of the top business schools in Spain, located in Barcelona, they announced that they have achieved carbon neutrality. So we did a little article about that on the website which Is kind of nice to see. They had set some targets, I guess, and they've hit those targets and. Yeah, kind of interesting in our. We talked, I guess last week a little bit about sustainability or maybe it was the week before, but, you know, so that was kind of a nice feather in their cap that we covered on the site.
• 5:21
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think this is superb. I mean, I know it's not the first reason why MBA candidates choose a school and you know, we've obviously done a lot of research in that regard, but at the end of the day, even with the culture wars going on in America and all sorts of wacky stuff, sustainability really does matter.
• 5:42
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 5:42
  Speaker B: And well done to isade for that achievement. Absolutely fantastic. I'm hoping, you know, this inspires others and maybe hopefully also inspires some folks to look more closely at a Saturday.
• 5:57
  Speaker A: Yeah, and speaking of sustainability, we did, we had a guest article on the site as part of our Fridays from the Front Line series. A female student at LBS whose name has completely escaped me as we sit here and record, but she went on a London business school global experience, which is part of their curriculum, where you go off somewhere and they went to Singapore with a bunch of her and a bunch of her classmates and they did this kind of business tour and the focus of that tour was exploring sustainability in Southeast Asia. Apparently there's a lot of cutting edge stuff happening there. So she wrote a really great kind of diary entry or sort of journal about that experience. And that's up on the site too.
• 6:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, brilliant. That's what blogs used to be. Right. And that's the heritage of Friday from the front lines, quite frankly. But also this shows, this is just a really good example of the types of offerings from top business schools. It's not just about all the on campus experience, but all the global experiences that you can undertake whilst you're at the school of your choice. So this isn't unique to LBs, but what a great example.
• 7:02
  Speaker A: Yeah, it is always amazing when you get 20 students at a top MBA program and you start to tell companies in a region that you're coming for a visit, they really roll out the red carpet. And often a lot of these companies have alums working at them. And so, yeah, I'm sure they had a great experience. So check that out if you're interested. Speaking of companies and careers, we did our first Kind of Careers article for this season. As you know, Elliot on our team tends to compile all the data out of those career reports that you and I had been sharing over the Course of the winter and he's published his first article on the site. It's all about consulting Placement trend at Top Programs. It's a really interesting piece. It breaks down consulting, but also MBB specifically and which schools are doing the best at sending people off to these types of jobs. And I mean, it's no spoiler alert. I mean, consulting placements are down across the board pretty much. But it's interesting to see kind of the subtleties of what's going on and how it's reflected differently at different programs.
• 8:07
  Speaker B: So which schools are doing best? I haven't read the article yet, quite frankly, I read it later because I know Elliot does do a fantastic job at crunching these numbers. But which school comes out best? Graham?
• 8:19
  Speaker A: Yeah, so it's interesting in terms of just overall, like which schools send the most people into consulting? Or we go. We actually share both percentages and raw numbers because I think that's important. So you have schools like Tuck and Darden, Emory Fuqua all sending a very high percentage of candidates, you know, usually 40% and up into consulting. Of course, when you get into raw numbers, there's a different set of schools that emerge because some of these schools are bigger than others. Right. So if we look at the raw numbers of the schools sending the most people into consulting, we have Columbia Booth, Wharton, Kellogg, then Darden, Fuqua, all the.
• 8:58
  Speaker B: Top end seven programs.
• 9:00
  Speaker A: Yeah. And even HBS is in there. They sent about 100 people into consulting. Interesting enough. Stanford's way down on that list. They only sent 28 people into consulting. So much fewer. So yeah, it just depends on the. Obviously people going to these schools sometimes have chosen a school because they have specific interests and you know, so.
• 9:18
  Speaker B: But anyway, yeah, it's interesting though, right, isn't it? Because it's like how do you distinguish the difference between a school sends a lot of candidates to consulting because they're great at developing consultants and have lots of opportunities for that, versus schools send a lot of folks to consulting because they're not very greater. Anything else? Now I say that not to disparage, but I think Stanford here is a really good example. 28 or whatever you said folks go into consulting from Stanford. Is that because they're not great at training consultants or is it because their candidates, their students, have lots of other great opportunities from which to choose? Some of them do choose consulting, but others choosing vc, private equity and other tech focused careers and so on and so forth. So you've got to be very careful, I guess, is my point is the raw Numbers and the percentage is absolutely fantastic. But really reading between the lines, why is this number high, why is this number low, et cetera.
• 10:29
  Speaker A: Yeah, I totally agree. And it really, you know, I think in Sanford's case, yeah, as you correctly point out, they're sending a lot of people into a number of other domains like VC and startups. And so, yeah, important to note. The other thing I will say is that, that it was interesting to see these numbers in the article. We share, I think five years worth of data, so you could sort of see trends. And, you know, it's, it's absolutely the case that numbers are kind of down across the board in terms of the percentage of people heading off to consulting. But even though they're down, they're kind of getting back down into the range of where they had been. There'd been a couple years in a row of very high kind of real spikes in consulting placement. And so while the numbers are down, I guess my main point is that they're sort of down off maybe unreasonable highs and they're coming back into the sort of zone that they'd been operating in. So we'll see what happens this coming year and beyond. But I just thought that was interesting as well. So everyone check out that article.
• 11:23
  Speaker B: It's.
• 11:23
  Speaker A: Elliot spent a lot of time putting that together. There's a whole ton of graphs and charts in there that I, you know, there's a lot to go through, but enjoy. And it's. Yeah, it's really. I think these are super useful.
• 11:34
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely fascinating. And I assume Elliot. Well, I know he's going to do one on finance and hopefully tech.
• 11:40
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 11:41
  Speaker B: And hopefully other corresponding articles because we've seen other big trends, not specifically industry related, that I think we're going to be addressing as a result of all the data that we're processing. So, yeah, brilliant.
• 11:57
  Speaker A: Last thing before we talk about this week's candidates is we continue to do our real humans with alumni from leading MBA programs. And so I'll just zip through. We have four people and they're just so interesting that I just want to share takeaways. Now, obviously, if you're interested in this kind of stuff, go to the site because these articles have way more content than I'm doing justice to. But we did catch up with Cynthia, who's a Duke grad, graduated back in 23 and worked at McKinsey as an associate. Cynthia is originally from California, went to ucla. Really interesting background. Worked on Obama's reelection campaign. Also worked at UCLA in the community programs office. So a really non traditional candidate heading into duke for the NBA and now is at McKinsey. And here's something interesting. You know, we said, what's one thing you would change or do differently as part of the job search? And she said, I would have leveraged the power of being a student more effectively. Early in my MBA experience, I felt pressure to craft the perfect outreach message before asking for someone's time on someone's calendar. However, I later realized that as long as I had genuine interest and clear intentions, most people were happy to speak with me simply because I was a student. Understanding this earlier would have made networking feel more natural and productive. So I think it's great advice from Cynthia, who's a duke grad at McKinsey.
• 13:13
  Speaker B: Yeah, now she can just use ChatGPT to craft that message.
• 13:17
  Speaker A: Exactly.
• 13:18
  Speaker B: Good point.
• 13:19
  Speaker A: Let's see, we also caught up with Cedric, or Cedric, I guess. Now I'm living in France. That's pronounced differently, but I think it's Cedric in American English. Went to Kelly, class of 23, works at Microsoft as a business planner. Cedric is actually from Accra, Ghana. Went to the University of Ghana, Worked in investment banking before business school. And we said, again, what's one piece of advice that you wish you had been given during your mba? And Cedric says, embrace change. Embrace it uncomfortably. I wish I had done more of the things I wasn't the best at during my mba. For you, this could mean public speaking, leading teams and projects, creating connections, taking up leadership roles. The MBA is a bridge to start. Sorry. Is a bridge to the start of the next stage of your life. Use it to become a better version of you. So that was pretty philosophical and really useful advice from Cedric.
• 14:16
  Speaker B: Yeah, great advice from Cedric.
• 14:17
  Speaker A: Cedric is how you say it. Okay, absolutely.
• 14:21
  Speaker B: And I'm guessing that's how Cedric says it.
• 14:23
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's possible. All right. Yeah. I'm just so used to hearing it in French that my brain is now turned around. But okay. We also caught up with Thomas, actually, who I'm gonna call Thomas because he's from Belgium and he went to Michigan. Ross graduated in 23, works at JP Morgan as an analytics solutions associate. He went to undergrad in Belgium, studied computer science. Also really interesting career background. Pre business school, worked at UNESCO as well as a global payments firm. And we said, what's one thing you would change or do differently as part of the job search? And Tomas said, opening my eyes sooner to the type of work I'd be doing in a job rather than purely focusing on titles and narrowing my search. Titles I should have focused on what I want to do, not what I want to be called or what title I want to put on my resume next. So I think what Tomas is kind of getting at is just that he spent a lot of time thinking, okay, I want this job and it has this title. But in reality he was like, maybe I should have just been a bit more open minded and exploring, exploring things makes good sense.
• 15:30
  Speaker B: Really understand what's important to you from a. A particular sort of career situation and not necessarily worry so much about the title.
• 15:41
  Speaker A: Yeah, and one last thing. I read this piece that we put up there and he offered a ton of other advice and he just said like when he went into the recruiting process, he never would have imagined landing at a financial firm like JP Morgan, but that it was when he realized that he could kind of figure out what does he want to do, he just found they had a role that was sort of perfect for him. So in any event, yeah, very good advice. The last person we caught up with is Bria and she is a Columbia Business School grad, actually recently graduated in 24, works at Netflix in content strategy. Grew up in Bloomington, Indiana, went to the Ohio State University and worked at Salesforce as a solutions engineer, pre mba. One thing that she says that she would change or do differently as part of her job search, she said candidly, I fell victim to panic and after seeing my consulting and banking friends get their job offers, I knew that media and tech recruiting was just in time recruiting and had a much later timeline. But I felt really behind when January rolled around and I didn't have an offer. As a result, I started applying for things I wasn't even really interested in because I was afraid that I wouldn't get anything. It was a huge waste of my time. So I wish I would have trusted the process more. What do you think of that?
• 17:03
  Speaker B: That is right on the money. And I think this is a common problem for those that have not necessarily less traditional job searches. But if you're not recruiting for consulting or banking, which are early in the process, I think a lot of folks share that same sort of issue. So hopefully career management are coaching folks to be more resilient to that particular effect.
• 17:31
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, that was really good advice and I still recall that same. I mean this is a long standing issue where tech and media and all these other jobs are just later. And it's hard, it is hard, you know, to sit back and what a cv.
• 17:42
  Speaker B: What a cv. They have Salesforce, Columbia, Netflix. Fantastic. Yeah.
• 17:47
  Speaker A: And the Ohio State University. I always laugh that they call it the, the Ohio State.
• 17:51
  Speaker B: Oh, I forgot. Yeah, Ohio State.
• 17:53
  Speaker A: There you go. So in any event, I love the, those pieces and we have many more that are forthcoming. All these great companies people are landing at and I think it gives you a real sense when you're applying to business school of what's on the other side. So super useful. I don't have anything else, Alex. I do want to remind people that we could really use some reviews of the show and ratings. So please, wherever you're listening, if you can give us a rating or a review, we greatly appreciate it. You can also write to us@infoearadmit.com Alex, anything else before we talk about this week's candidates?
• 18:25
  Speaker B: Well, do we have any listeners?
• 18:27
  Speaker A: We do. I mean, last time I checked.
• 18:30
  Speaker B: Yeah. Okay.
• 18:32
  Speaker A: I mean, you know, we, I do look occasionally and yes, that there are people who tune in week, weekend and week out and we even get emails from some of them. So.
• 18:39
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 18:40
  Speaker A: And they're not all related to you and me. Yeah. All right, so we, let's, let's move on then.
• 18:46
  Speaker B: I guess let's kick on.
• 18:48
  Speaker A: All right.
• 18:48
  Speaker B: Very good.
• 18:49
  Speaker A: All right, this is like this is wiretap candidate number one. All right, so our first candidate this week comes from an apply wire entry. This person's looking to start in the fall of 26. They have eight schools on their target list. Those schools are Columbia, Harvard, Michigan, Stanford, Chicago, Wharton, uva and Yale. This person's worked in real estate acquisitions and development. They want to pivot into an investment banking. They have a 675 on the GMAT Focus edition or which is now just the regular GMAT that we looked, I think before we came on air. That's sort of like a 720, 730 if you're on the old scale still. They had a 3.1 GPA as an undergrad, four years of work experience. They're located in the mid Atlantic, but they state in the notes that they're originally from the uk. They're now a US Permanent residential. They went to a community college and then transferred to a top 25 undergrad, but had severe health issues due to a disability that led to their 3.1 GPA. They did stay at that undergraduate institution to pursue a master's in finance where they had a 3.8 GPA. And so they feel like they, you know, were able to kind of recover a little bit. They've got extensive outside activities, mostly centered around helping the homeless. They, you know, did a year volunteering it sounds like between high school and college, but they continue to do that kind of stuff while they were on campus and even after. So they're pretty passionate about that. And it links a little bit to their real estate interests as well in that they, you know, have a real focus or interest in affordable housing. So Alex, there were a number of questions and you had a little bit of an exchange with this candidate on the site. But what do you make of their chances and any advice for this person?
• 20:45
  Speaker B: Yeah, I really like this candidate. I mean what I really like about this candidate is their interests and their goals and their passions and their education and their experience all align. Right. So you talked about this sort of homeless sort of support, affordable housing, et cetera, et cetera, that dials very closely then into their short and long term goals. Post mba, they're obviously working in real estate now. They've had a little bit of job hopping the first couple of years out of college, but over the last two years I think they've really sort of hit the ground running in terms of their career. They've got a lot of responsibility, they've done some interesting things. So that aspect of their profile I think is really, really good and really interesting. The undergraduate degree, that's going to raise a little bit of a concern. I mean overall, 3.1 started off 3.6 community college. So maybe it shows how far they've come. Maybe some lived experience is dialed into this sort of candidacy a little bit. Starting off at community college, but in their final year, I think at undergrad they struggled a little bit and they had corresponding health, they had a health disability that harmed their overall performance. So they're going to have to address that in the optional essay. And you know, with that type of thing you've got two, two things to sort of deal with as it were, when, when addressing it. One is sort of explain the issue, but secondly, make, make it clear to the ADCOM that it's an issue that they've overcome, they're able to mitigate, et cetera, et cetera, join their MBA program because the ADCOM doesn' permit someone that's liable to, you know, struggle overly and so on and so forth. So that'll be important. But they do have that 3.8 in their masters in finance. So maybe that's a way to show that they've overcome this issue and so forth. But you know, 3.1 overall, that's going to raise a bit of a red flag.675 on the GMAT. It's actually a good score, it hits between 720 and 730. But when you're really targeting these very top programs in conjunction with a 3.1 GPA at the undergrad, if they think they can squeeze out a few more points, it might be worth a retake, maybe on the apply wire, I was a bit more focused on suggesting that retake's important, but now I realize it's nearly a 7:30. It's still quite good, still a very good score. But if they're really wanting to target the very top schools, if they think they can squeeze a few more points out of that, then it would be worth doing. But yeah, overall I think a really interesting candidate, Graham with real passion for their goals, which is something I really respect. They've just got to overcome this little bit of their undergraduate record.
• 23:57
  Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. I think optional essay explaining it pointing to the masters where they have that 3.8 and then, yeah, they have time. So if they felt like they could get a 705 or a 715 or something on the test, why not? You know, it'll only increase their odds. Right. So why not? The only thing I want to call your attention to, I had a little bit of a chuckle. They said they talked a lot about their goals and they're clearly very passionate about real estate and also affordable housing. And they said they one of the things they're thinking about is starting an affordable real estate investment firm perhaps in London. I had to laugh because I feel like there's nothing affordable about London, but maybe that's why there's a needle.
• 24:33
  Speaker B: Yes, exactly. And with our current government, obviously that's one of their big pushes forward, is making a lot more housing stock available across the uk so it could dovetail with that sort of initiative.
• 24:48
  Speaker A: That's a good point. Yeah. Anyway, I wish this person the best of luck, thank them for sharing their profile and hopefully they'll keep us posted as the season gets going here.
• 24:58
  Speaker B: Just one more thing about this candidate, Grams, we're worth talking about their first two, they work for four years. First two years they've acknowledged a bit of job hopping, etc. For a couple of different reasons. And now that they've spent two years in this current situation with real impact and growth and so forth, how do you think they need to be a little bit cautious in terms of how they address that first couple of years?
• 25:26
  Speaker A: I mean, I think just being matter of fact, I mean they did a good job in the. On the ApplyWire entry. I thought they explained it Quite well. Well they've, you know, they found their fit and now they're excelling. They've had a promotion I believe and yeah, I just focus on that most recent job. They've had a couple years of experience there so should be fine.
• 25:42
  Speaker B: But they've always got to explain the whys between one situation to the next.
• 25:47
  Speaker A: Yeah, I agree.
• 25:48
  Speaker B: So even if they're only in a situation for a short period of time, why did they move? They, they want to make sure they do articulate that.
• 25:55
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 25:55
  Speaker B: Not, not try to hide. I mean they're not going to hide it. They can't hide it but not try to avoid. Avoid it. Because ADCOM will default to the negative.
• 26:04
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 26:05
  Speaker B: If they don't see the explanation.
• 26:07
  Speaker A: Yeah, fair, fair point. All right, so yeah, I want to thank them again for submitting those details and we'll see how it all turns out. Let's move on though and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two. All right, so this next candidate this week again comes from an apply wire entry and this person, they just listed three schools on the target list, although we learn later that there might be open to more than that. But they mentioned duke, Michigan and UT Austin, McCombs. They too are an early bird. They're going to be starting business school in the fall of 26 so getting their applications rolling this summer. They have been working as an engineer slash product manager in their pre MBA career. They want to pivot into consulting or possibly tech. But they mentioned Bain, BCG, McKinsey and then all the Fang companies pretty much. They have a 675 on the GMAT as well, which again like 720, 730. They have a 3.8 GPA in undergrad, six years of work experience. They're based in Germany but they're actually from a small non EU European country. They mentioned they're 30 years old, white European, they can speak three languages. They've been living abroad for seven years now across a couple of different countries, most recently in Germany. They did mention that their undergrad is in electrical engineering. They also have a master's degree with a 3:9 again in electrical engineering from a top EU university. They talked about how their work has been in semiconductors. They started out as like an engineer but now they're in this kind of product manager role and they're focusing on strategy. It's a large US based company but they are working as I said in Germany they're really into skiing running. They say though that they don't have any like standout extracurriculars. So we can talk a bit about that. They kind of laid out their target schools. I mean, they mentioned, you know, the ones that they listed, you know, Fuqua and McCombs and Michigan and stuff. But they also, they sort of describe the M7 as a reach for them and they're thinking that, you know, in an ideal world they'll transition into a product manager role at a top tech company or maybe do consulting. And they just asked us some questions. They were wondering a few things. Like one is, you know, how competitive are they. But also they wondered whether they should be considering NYU Stern's tech MBA or Kellogg's MBAI Would they be appropriate for their profile? This person is 30 and they also indicate they would like to get a lot of scholarship dollars and they're wondering if that's not well aligned given their stats. So what do you think, Alex?
• 28:50
  Speaker B: I mean this person is wicked smart, right? 38 undergrad, 39 grad, electrical engineering. I mean, and they're working in, you know, the semiconductor industry. I mean that to me sounds very on topic right now. Right. So Nvidia and all the stuff going on, I mean, it just seems that if they articulate their candidacy really well, they're going to be the type of candidate that actually schools are really going to resonate with. I'm a little bit less enthusiastic about their extracurriculars and they've acknowledged that that. So that might harm them a little bit. But they're going to need to come across as someone really affable and teamwork this, that and the other. And the fact that they're now a product manager I think is going to be really helpful going into the MBA because that's the type of position lots of folks in the tech sector are wanting to go into coming out of the mba. So they've already sort of gone down that pathway to some degree. And I asked them about again the GMAT 675, maybe they should retake it. But obviously it's already a 727 30. But you know, they said maybe they could, you know, with one month of prep, get a 705 or 715. I'm like, well, do that month's prep. Yeah, it's really important that your all your profile is as strong as it can be. Right. And they've got the time. I mean, obviously if they were targeting round three this season, it'd be like, no, that score's good enough. Just kick on and apply round three. But they're targeting next season. So they do have that time. And if they're concerned about scholarship dollars, the higher that GMAT score, the more opportunity they'll have for scholarship. So if they're targeting these right now top 16, top 20 programs, which are the ones they identified on their list, I think as things stand now, they're going to be potentially in a strong position for scholarship opportunity. But with the higher score, they could be looking higher up iem7 and still look for scholarship opportunity. And should they pursue one of these tech MBAs? Yeah, possibly. Maybe it's a shorter experience and so forth, and their experience aligns well with that. So I wouldn't discount that at all. But I got to think this is potentially A very solid M7 candidate, Graham, just barring a little bit on the extracurricular side. But outside of that, they're wicked smart. They're in an industry that's really super interesting right now. They're in a product management role. So they're obviously doing well at work. They can back that up with strong wrecks. They're European, et cetera, et cetera. Really interesting candidate.
• 31:56
  Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. And I think the extracurriculars they could probably work on in the sense that, you know, they indicate what they like doing, but, you know, they say running. So are they running in any races? Are they raising any money via that? You know, there are things they could be doing that we don't have here, so. And they also talk about skill development. Maybe they're teaching themselves new. New things or. I don't know. As long as you say they come across as, you know, sociable, you know, affable, I think was the word you use. So I. Yeah, I feel like. Like this is a really strong candidate. I also agree. Hey, they have time. Why not retake the test if they're that focused on scholarship dollars, by all means. The other thing I would add is that, you know, while they will be really sought after by a top 20 school, I think, as you say, they could be very competitive M7 and with a high test score, the scholarship dollars that some of these M7 schools are offering, or really that, you know, the top schools are offering can be quite high. In fact, some of those schools have the biggest sort of bank accounts, right, to draw from. So I think, you know, sometimes you might get more money out Columbia than you would out of a school further down in the rankings, you know, just because they have more to give out in the first place. So, yeah, so they should target some top schools, you know, I would say anywhere across the sort of top 16. And yeah, this is, this is a great candidate in my view. I mean, they, you know, they have some work to do and, and, but they have time and I feel like they could be very competitive, as you, for all the reasons that you point out.
• 33:17
  Speaker B: They should certainly put their hat in for Sloan on.
• 33:19
  Speaker A: Yeah, that would, those would be, you know, make a lot of sense to me. Yeah. So in any event, I want to wish them the best of luck and thank them for sharing their, their profile. Let's move on though, and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number three. So our final candidate this week, Alex, comes from a decision wire entry that you've selected. This candidate applied to Columbia, Tuck, Duke, Georgetown, Wharton, uva and Yale. And they've come away with three offers. They got in at Tuck, they got in at Duke with $40,000 in scholarship and they got in at Georgetown. They're actually currently waitlisted at Columbia and Darden, and I guess that means they were rejected at Wharton and Yale. So that's how it turned out for them. They're based in dc, they want to work in consulting. And. And they say, I'm leaning towards Tuck over Fuqua and Georgetown, but still undecided. And so this is interesting. So here's Someone. They have $40,000 from Fuqua, no money from Tuck. They want to work in consulting. What do you make of that? Why are they. Why do you think they're leaning Tuck? And what do you make of that?
• 34:29
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it doesn't surprise me. I mean, Tuck would be in a slightly higher tier than Fuqua and they'd be in the tier above Georgetown. So having a little bit of a scholarship at Fuqua sort of counterbalances the offer at Tuck, I think, Graham, it boils down to where do they want to be post MBA? So they're from D.C. if they want to return to D.C. i would probably have a strong push towards Fuqua. Fuqua. I mean, obviously Georgetown is in dc, so they probably have the strongest network overall in terms of alumni in that city. But Fuqua's probably got a really strong network in D.C. also. It's from the higher tier and they're getting 40,000. So I think that tips Fuqua over Georgetown in that case. And I just think Fuqua's alumni network in D.C. is probably a little bit stronger than Top. Now, if they're wanting to go anywhere in the Northeast, Mid Atlantic, then yes, I get why they're leaning towards TOC. I think when you're looking at consulting opportunities whilst 40k is not peanuts. I think in the longer run you can justify that sort of differential. But if they want to come back to dc, Graham, I would certainly think that that elevates both Fuqua and Georgetown, but Fuqua more so in this case.
• 36:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's an interesting dilemma. I mean, I feel like if you look at the numbers, Tuck has a slight edge in consulting jobs. But it's so slight. I mean, these are both. Both Tuck and Fuqua are schools that really are winners when it comes to consulting jobs. I mean, they both do very, very well. One of the issues is that not all schools report on MBB specific placements. Some schools share that data. Is one of the schools that does share and they do pretty well there. Tuck doesn't share. What percentage of their consulting hires are going to those three firms. You know, they might ask the careers office. Maybe as an admitted student at Tuck, they could get their hands on that data and compare, you know, really do some apples to apples. But yeah, I hear what you're saying. I would understand why Duke might have a stronger network in dc. It's further south and you know, it's kind of a hub, so that's possible. But I also understand, I mean, the thing that's really challenging here is that both Tuxedos and Duke have these really amazing close knit communities, relatively small programs. And so they're both just great environments for an mba. And they're similar in that respect. Although it's tricky. I mean, I wouldn't discount the edge that an Ivy League school has. Particularly as you said in the Northeast, those networks are important. And so, yeah, it's an interesting dilemma. And the $40,000. Yeah, if you're going to work in consulting, maybe you don't care about that because you're going to make a lot of money, but it's not such a small amount of money that you could completely ignore it. So, yeah, this is, it's just fascinating. I love to see these numbers because it, you know, I mean, the thing that didn't make sense to me is I wonder why Georgetown didn't give them any money because that's the wild card here. But in any event, yeah, this is tricky and I don't think they're going to go wrong. They should probably go to both admitted student weekends if they can.
• 37:53
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, if you had 100 folks with these options, well, top versus Fuku Fitness, about 50 would pick one and 50 would pick the other. So good luck.
• 38:01
  Speaker A: Yeah, it is tricky. Yeah. So in any event, thanks for picking these out, Alex. And, yeah, it's, it's exciting. These are, I think these are, you know, we're starting to see more of these folks who are already targeting next year. So we're, we're in the midst of all this great news about this year with round two decisions. But I also like that we're getting a little bit of a glimpse into the next wave of candidates that we can help. So lots of fun. And, yeah, let's do it all again next week. If you're around.
• 38:25
  Speaker B: Stay safe, everyone. Take care.