Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 401—Super background, weak quant. Applying in two years. Wharton vs Booth.

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MBA Wire Taps 401—Super background, weak quant. Applying in two years. Wharton vs Booth. · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:16
  Speaker A: Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm Graham Richmond and this is your Wiretaps for Monday, December 16, 2024.
• 0:25
  Speaker B: 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 and to claim your application fee waiver, visit business.vanderbilt.edu clearadmit.
• 0:58
  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 can we take a breath now? Like, I mean, it just feels like it's been a whirlwind of round one decisions. Is there anything left? Like, what's going on?
• 1:14
  Speaker C: There'll be a couple of decisions getting rolled out this upcoming week. Texas McCombs maybe. I mean, we're recording this on Thursday. They might have started calling Friday, we don't know. But. But yeah, all the big guns other than Texas and maybe one or two others have released their round one decisions. Now, obviously, Livewire activity last week was really strong with decisions getting released from Harvard and Wharton and Kellogg. Columbia came in. There was a lot of speculation when that was going to be. I think our colleague Mike actually nailed it exactly when it was going to be. So that was very clever.
• 1:55
  Speaker A: Yeah. Shout out to Mike for that. Very good.
• 1:58
  Speaker C: So that. So that was very good. But yeah, lots and lots of activity. It's great to see a lot of the good news. And there's obviously plenty of folks that maybe didn't quite get that good news. They were hoping and now they're having to re, you know, re focus themselves onto a round two strategy. So. But yeah, last week and the week before have been incredibly busy on Livewire.
• 2:27
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I think, you know, so some people might be, you know, a lot of people had good news. Some people didn't get in or going to be looking at round two options. And then there's another group which is the kind of waitlist crowd. There are lots of wait lists and people on the list and, you know, things that they need to address as well. We have a lot of good advice on the site if you do find yourself on a wait list. But one of the things I was hoping we could try to do is I'm just, I was so excited over the last couple weeks watching all these, you know, bits of positive news come across Livewire. And so we were kind of chatting with the team and Lauren on our team, I don't want to take credit for this. She came up with this idea that if you got into a school and you're excited about it, you could leave us like a voicemail and then we could run it on the podcast and you could say something about, you know, what school you got into, why, you know, why you're excited, and I don't know, just sharing some tidbit about the journey that you've been on and maybe what part Queer Admit has played in that journey. And so we have two ideas for kind of easy ways to do this. So you could just call our main number 215,568, 2590 and just leave a voicemail and then we can grab it and turn that into a file to drop into the show. Or an easier way might just be take out your phone and record a voice memo, which you can do. IPhones have a baked in voice memo app and so does Samsung and you know, the Android operating system as well. So you can record a voice memo and then just email it to infoearadmit.com so if we get those, I'll send them across to our producer extraordinaire, Dennis, and then we could pepper some of them in in the next show or two and just, you know, share some of this good news. I think that'd be a lot of fun. We'll see if anyone does it though. Alex? I'm kind of skeptical. We'll find out, I guess.
• 4:12
  Speaker C: Well, I hope they do now. After that, it'll look like no one on the clearmip community really got great news. So yeah, that'd be great. Great if they would share. That would be fantastic.
• 4:23
  Speaker A: Yeah, totally. So other stuff that's going on, I mean, we've been publishing a lot of admissions advice and some of it's geared towards round one, folks. So we did two kind of scholarship related admissions tips. The first is the famous can I negotiate a scholarship? So that's if you're not happy with the offer you got, can you go back? And so there's some tips in there. And then the second tip is should scholarship dollars influence my choice? And it's interesting because we're going to talk today about a candidate who has some offers and is debating where to go and money comes into factor there. So we'll talk through that. But there is an admissions tip on that. And then looking towards round two, we published a few tips. One is about how to define your career goals. We did another one about how to craft your resume, since many business schools will require that as well in the application. And then finally, we have a really nice tip on. Building connections at schools is a means to source anecdotes to share in your application materials. As you get to know current students or alums and you learn about these programs, you get fueled with lots of interesting things that you could then talk about in your applications. This isn't name dropping. This is like you learned about a specific conference or program or club or some nice details that can really enrich an application. So read that tip if you're in the midst of working on round two applications and feel like you need a bit more on your target schools. So, Alex. Yeah, I don't know why we published five of those tips in the last week, but that's a lot.
• 5:54
  Speaker C: Yeah. But I'd also say build those relationships, whether it's alums or students, nurture those relationships. And, you know, if you don't have any relationships, then. Yeah, using their website, looking at the leaders of the clubs you're interested in, maybe that's a way to start building those connections. But it can be really valuable in the admissions process.
• 6:17
  Speaker A: Yeah. And we actually, our fall, you know, Clear Admit does a lot of research with applicants, and our fall research project was all about that, the relationships that candidates build. And so many of our listeners took the survey that we were running earlier this fall, and I've been looking at the data. It's not ready yet, but it's kind of still going through it. And yeah, the top three people that candidates try to forge relationships with are, number one, current students, number two, alumni of the programs they're targeting. And then finally, do you want to guess what the third person type of person they want to forge a relationship with within the MBA community is?
• 6:50
  Speaker C: Not faculty.
• 6:51
  Speaker A: It's not. You're right. They're quite low on the list, actually. But, you know, it could be. I'll give you. I'll give you a few choices so you can narrow this down so it could be somebody. Yeah, you got it. Yeah. Admissions committee. Yeah.
• 7:03
  Speaker C: And I hadn't read the research report, but I do understand how things work. And it absolutely should be current students. It should be alum. And to the extent that you can build relationships with your interviewer or other members of the ADCOM without being overtly sort of aggressive in that pursuit, because then obviously you get red flagged. And that's a problem.
• 7:28
  Speaker A: Yeah, it was interesting because we did have other choices on the list, like, you know, career services folks, the financial aid team, like, so they're different groups, but yeah, admissions committee came out in third place and by a pretty good margin. In other news, Alex, we do continue to talk to current students at these business schools. Speaking of building those relationships, we have those real humans pieces on the site. And we connected with students at UT Austin this past week as well as talk Dartmouth. Over at UT Austin, we caught up with a woman named Casey from Dripping Springs, Texas. She is a graduate of Westpoint, was in the army for six years, and you're going to love her most recent title before she joined business school. Space Operations Officer. And when she says space, it's not like office space, it's outer space. So that was her job before business school, which is pretty cool. So we asked Casey, what is it that you think your most valuable or differentiating contribution will be to the class of 26 at McCombs? And she said, There are two distinct values that I bring to the program that I openly share with my classmates. First, I'm a proud army veteran serving my country aided in my development to always discover a sense of purpose in my profession. And second, I shared the lessons I learned with my peers on leading diverse groups in austere environments. So I guess when you're in the military, you're sometimes faced with some pretty challenging environments and things, right? Yeah, exactly that.
• 9:10
  Speaker C: Absolutely. And that space operate. Yeah, that is pretty. Pretty cool. No doubt.
• 9:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, totally. And there was one other thing about her that I wanted to share and I totally lost my. I had all these notes here and I'm obviously floundering, but I basically, she suffers from a disability that's related. Related to something about her. It sort of limits her mobility. Like her joints are just some kind of. It's a. I don't know what you call it, like a genetic thing that affects her joints. And so she talked about that and I can't find the quote anymore, but she just talked about how she's very open about this disability and just shares that with the community as well to build awareness and stuff. So. Yeah, really impressive. I mean. Yeah. So military grad, West Point, and seems like she's having a great time at McCombs thus far. So very cool stuff.
• 10:01
  Speaker C: Absolutely brilliant.
• 10:02
  Speaker A: And the other. So the other student we caught up with is at Dartmouth, Tuck. And this is Ariana. And she's originally from Lima, Peru, where she attended the Universidad Del Pacifico. And I guess she majored in business and she has been a product specialist, a strategist, and a growth hacker, or these are different titles she's held at a range of firms, some tech firms, and I think even some finance, too. But anyway, we asked her, what is one thing you would change or do differently if you could go through the application process again? And she said, reaching out to alumni and current students sooner. Each business school is unique, and no one knows this better than the people who are there or been there in the past. Talking to alumni and current students really gave me a taste of what the community of each business school is like and helped me focus on the ones that I thought would be a better fit for me. So there you have it again, this theme of talking to current students and alums. Alex, this seems to be the dominant thing this week here.
• 11:04
  Speaker C: Yeah, I think that, I mean, yeah, you're just echoing. So it seems like maybe we set that up deliberately, but no, I didn't. So. So that's really good. So I'm going to ask you, Graham, let's say you have no connections with, you know, MBA students at top programs, but you aspire to apply to these top programs.
• 11:26
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 11:27
  Speaker C: What creative ways would you deploy to try to nurture and connect with current students or alums?
• 11:36
  Speaker A: Yeah. So I think there are two sort of primary methods. I mean, and one thing that's great is the Internet has made this so much easier than it used to be. And I think even schools have made it easier such that on most of these programs, websites, they will feature current students and even in many cases have, like a portal where you can gain access to engage in a discussion with a current student. So that's very cool. But even in the absence of that, I think looking at student clubs and conferences and things that are happening on campus and trying to identify student leaders within those clubs who often have their name and email or contact, you know, a contact form on that club website is another great way to get in. You know, can you. You can just sort of cold reach out to someone and say, hey, I see you're the head of the consulting club. I'm applying to School X and I'm really passionate about consulting. Would you be willing to spend 15 minutes on the phone or, you know, have a quick zoom to talk about your experiences? So those are ways that I would think of.
• 12:34
  Speaker C: Now I'll ask you another. All on the same theme.
• 12:38
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 12:39
  Speaker C: Do we assume that nearly 100% of current MBA students have a LinkedIn profile?
• 12:46
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
• 12:49
  Speaker C: So I assume, and I haven't read our Real Humans pieces directly myself recently, so I apologize for that. But I assume we use full names for when we feature each of these students.
• 13:03
  Speaker A: We do, yeah, we absolutely do.
• 13:05
  Speaker C: So to me, if someone at a school, like at Texas or at Tuck, as in the case today, was willing to share their story through Clear Admits, Real Humans, I would assume that you'd be able to find that person quite easily on LinkedIn and be able to reach out to them through some method on LinkedIn to sort of gently say, look, I really, I read your, your profile on Clear Admits Real Humans really enjoyed it. I have a similar sort of profile or whatever it is to make that connection. And if they're willing to share their story on Clear Admit, they're probably willing to talk to prospective candidates. So my point is for those, because I do think there's a bias in the process of MBA admissions. Those with networks in schools have better access, so those without networks have to be more creative on how to engage with to learn more about these programs, et cetera, et cetera. So I think one way would be if you're applying to, let's say, McCombs in this case will feature McCombs. How many years of Real Humans pieces will we have on McCombs, Graham?
• 14:24
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, we must have like, at least four or five years worth of profiles. And each year we're profiling anywhere from four to six students. So you could, yeah, you could go read all those and then check people out on LinkedIn that interest you for sure.
• 14:37
  Speaker C: Yeah. And from that, then you're contacting alums as well as current students, because if you're contacting a student that was there three years ago, they're an alum. Right. So. And you can look at their LinkedIn profile, obviously, to see how they've moved on and try to maintain. But my point is, I think these types of pieces really help level the playing field a little for those that do have less access to current students and alums, maybe those that are coming from less traditional industries, et cetera, et cetera.
• 15:10
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I think, I mean, this was first of all, great idea. Like, it did not occur to me that, you know, to push our own content. But I think it's a really smart move because you're right, these people have demonstrated a propensity to want to share their story, and so they're probably open to being contacted. I mean, this idea of Real Humans, the schools love it. I mean, I love it. I think as you say it's a great way to sort of put our readership in direct kind of contact or at least really give them a glimpse into the day to day life of these current students. I mean, it was so great that P and Q copied it. So it's definitely a good series. But in any event, let's move on because we have one more thing we want to tackle before we talk about this week's candidates. And that one more thing is speaking of Tuck, who we just talked about real humans at Tuck. We got the career report from Tuck. So I wanted to share just the basic numbers with you and get your take and then we can talk about this week's candidates. So I'll start with the average. The median salary for tuck, which was $175,000, that's unchanged and again is a record breaking figure for the last two years. Now for them, 84% of their graduates got a signing bonus. And the average amount of that signing bonus was 30,000. So you can sort of throw that into the mix as well. In terms of the basic numbers, there were 245 students out of the 283 graduates who were seeking full time employment. So that's like 87% of the classes looking for work. Right. The rest of them are either starting their own business or in many cases just sponsored. So they're going back to the company that they came from. So by three months postgrad post graduation, 91% of students had accepted a job offer, which is a really nice number. Consulting, in terms of the different industries, I'll give you those percentages. 44% went to consulting. That's down 2%. It was 46% last year. 24% went into finance or financial services. That's up 1%. 10% went into technology, that's down from 14%. 8% into healthcare, that's up a couple percentage points. And consumer goods and retail is 6%, and that's held steady from last year. So those are the industries. And then when it comes to region, 66% of tuck grads who were looking for jobs and got them landed in the Northeast, that's up from 53%. So a 13% increase in placements in the Northeast. 12% went to the West coast, that's down 2 percentage points. 7% to the Midwest, that's down 3%. 4% to the Southwest, that's down from 8% last year. And then 4% in the Mid Atlantic, that's similar to last year. And 3% to the south, that's actually down A little bit from the year before. 96% of grads are working in the US so the rest are going international. Alex, what do you make of these numbers from Tucker?
• 18:19
  Speaker C: Really, really good. Yeah. I mean they've whole par effectively from last year and last year was like you say was a record in terms of median salary. That 91% number three months out. That's very good I think, because that's one of the numbers we're closely tracking this year to see if there's any drop off there. And we've talked about this before that sort of a little bit more local in terms of where folks are being hired. And your data absolutely replicates that. 60% Northeast and also holding steady in Mid Atlantic, I think. Mid Atlantic, Northeast, they're pretty much the same. Mid Atlantic is just an extension of the Northeast, right?
• 19:11
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 19:12
  Speaker C: Philadelphia or whatever. So D.C. yeah. Yeah, Philly and D.C. so yeah, I mean these are good numbers from talk.
• 19:20
  Speaker A: Yeah, agreed. And I think it is interesting to me and again, as we said last week, I think what happens when you see this regionalization where you have 66% staying in the Northeast and when you throw in the mid Atlantic, you get up to 70%. Right. So that's, I think some of that has to do with as the job market is more challenging, you rely on alumni and alumni do tend to be closer to the school as a rule. So that's probably some of what's going on on there. But yeah, overall really great numbers. So.
• 19:46
  Speaker C: But it also shows when you're deciding which school to attend, geography matters. Yeah, right. You want to go to the, to, to, to a school that serves the region well where you want to work post MBA now, no doubt there are very few schools that can be more regionally agnostic. And we'll talk about Harvard next week in their career report that just got released. And they might fit, they would fit into that bucket. But the majority of schools. Geography matters.
• 20:22
  Speaker A: Yeah. And you will be surprised. There's some. I peeked at that HBS report and I didn't have enough time to prepare it for this show. So we'll talk next week about it. But you'll be surprised, you know, when it comes to placements at east coast for hbs, I mean that's the big, big thing. And they. Yeah, the west coast numbers are not that big. And I think some of that's related to the tech declines. Right. That we've been seeing. But yeah, we'll get into next week, I guess. So give people a reason to come back and listen all right, so yeah.
• 20:51
  Speaker C: We couldn't prepare effectively, so we'll just have to wait till next week.
• 20:53
  Speaker A: Exactly. Well, it just came out last night or something, so. All right, so let's move on and talk about. Obviously you can always email us@info clearadmint.com I think many of you will be sending us your voice memos and clips about acceptances, so we'll look forward to that. But Alex, anything else before we talk about this week's candidates, let's kick on. All right, so this is WireTaps candidate number one. Our first candidate this week has six schools on the target list. And this comes from an apply wire entry. This person's applying to Berkeley, Harvard, mit, Stanford, Wharton and Yale. So very top kind of list of schools there. They have a background in pharma, VC and innovation Consulting. Consulting. And they're thinking about VC or maybe even entrepreneurship after business school. They mention Andreessen, Horowitz and NEA as possible target companies after business school. Their GRE is A320 and they didn't list a GPA, but they did tell us in the comments that they went to Oxford in the UK and they were second class honors. So not bad. Five years of work experience in total. They are currently located in London in the uk. I should also mention this candidate is both, is from both Cote d'ivoire or what are we, Ivory Coast? Sorry, I'm living in France, I keep saying the wrong or the French version of these countries. So they're from Ivory coast and Italy originally, but again now residing in the uk. They do say that they want to run their own health tech startup or join a health focused VC team after business school. So a little more precision there. They've kind of bounced around a little bit. They've worked. I mean, they listed at least four or five roles that they've had over the course of their years of experience. And they mentioned that they've even done a lot of different things on the side. Like they, they've started at least two, if not three companies on the side, they've had some ups and downs, failures, etc. So they have always been doing things on the side in a kind of entrepreneurial vein and, you know, done things like secured funding, et cetera. So the other thing that I wanted to share, Alex, is they mentioned that that GRE score, which was a 320, was a 167 on the verbal and a 153 on the quant. And I looked up, just in case our listeners are curious, I looked up the percentile scores and so their verbal score is in the 97th percentile. Very strong. Their math score, 153 lands at the 34th percentile. So with that I wanted to kind of just put these numbers to you and. Yeah. What do you think of this candidacy?
• 23:39
  Speaker C: I think that's a problem, Graham, quite honestly. I mean, clearly this candidate to me, and just in the brief of information we, we've got on them from apply wide, they've got a lot of qualities. You know, their academic profile. I mean a 2:1 from Oxford, that's decent.
• 24:00
  Speaker A: Oh, they have a Master's too, I forgot to mention.
• 24:02
  Speaker C: Yeah, they got a master's from some school in Paris that's really famous science. I knew I couldn't pronounce it correctly, that's why I said some school that's famous. But, but I mean they've got real pedigree behind their academy, there's no doubt about that. But I'm suspecting, obviously we haven't seen the transcript from the Parisian school, but I'm suspecting there's a lack of quant there and then when that's reinforced with a lower quant score on the gre, then the ADCOM at these very top schools that they're targeting is going to be really nervous in terms of how they'll handle the first aspects of the curriculum. So I think they need to do a couple of things. I think they, they absolutely need to retake the gre, which they are planning to do and really focus on the focus on the quant side to try to mitigate any concerns or you know, try to get it into the 160s mark and so forth. I probably would advise them too to take some supplemental coursework or something like MBA math or something just to show one, that they have the chops to do well academically, but two, they have the self awareness to recognize that it's not been part of their academic training thus far and they're preparing themselves for these top tier MBA programs. So I think they need to do that. I do think that they, you know, if they can, you know, create a cogent narrative around a lot of the experiences that they've had, lots of startup experience, lots of, you know, successes, some failures, some, some of which obviously they could learn from, et cetera, et cetera, and come up with a really cogent story, I think there's a lot of quality here. Graham. I'm just nervous for the quant aptitude that's demonstrated thus far.
• 26:09
  Speaker A: Yeah, I really, this is like a Jekyll and Hyde thing for me where when I first saw the profile I'm like, wow, they went to Oxford, they went to Sciences Po and they did pretty well at Sciences Po as well. And they, you know, they've had this like varied set of experiences. They mentioned they've done innovation consulting, they did a stint at a VC fund, they worked at a tech startup, they've most recently been working in an innovation role at a pharma company in London. Like they've done that for about two years now. So, you know, you say, wow, there's a lot of, as you say, academic pedigree, interesting work experience. Not to mention they've started a bunch of companies on the side. They have interesting heritage, it sounds to me they have part from Ivory coast and part from Italy. So there's a lot to like on that side. But then you start to sort of peel it back and you're like, well, they weren't first class honors or anything at Oxford and they didn't make the kind of honors quite grades at Sciences Po in Paris either. And then yeah, like you say, the GRE is coming in on the weaker side, particularly quantitatively. And I think their academic background, as you say, has been very qualitative to date. So it's a red flag. And I think you then combine all that with the fact that look at their target schools, they've got M7 type schools and then the two schools that are not M7 on their list are Berkeley and Yale, both of which have very low acceptance rates and very high academic standards. I get nervous when I see this list and these numbers and I just feel like they need to retake the test and like you say, maybe do some additional math coursework too.
• 27:38
  Speaker C: Yeah. And you know, maybe they, they need to expand their target school list. You know, it depends if they need to go this season or they're willing to wait another season if things don't work out this season. But yeah, I mean, there's a lot of quality here. But there are this one issue that can potentially hold them back. So to the extent that they can address that, that's what they need to do.
• 28:09
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I think they're going to need to be also quite careful and conscientious when it comes to describing their career to date because I can just imagine the resume and the career section of the application forms getting a bit chaotic because they have four or five different roles professionally over the last five years, but then couple that with two or three startups that they've launched. So There's a lot going on and so they're going to need to find a way to very concisely explain everything and can kind of weave it together.
• 28:39
  Speaker C: Yeah. And that gets to the whys behind the changes. Right?
• 28:46
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 28:47
  Speaker C: So, so listing everything you've done is one thing and the growth and impact and so on and so forth. But, but carefully articulating why you made a transition from one situation to the next is also really important.
• 29:02
  Speaker A: Totally. Yeah. So I want to wish them the best of luck. I know we didn't give them a sort of like, hey, you're going to get in everywhere kind of profile review here, but I think that there's, there's reason for, reasons for optimism. They just need to do the work and get, get the apps in. So I want to thank them for sharing their post. Let's move on and talk about WireTaps. Candidate number two. So our second candidate this week has 10 schools on the target list and there's a nice range of programs here, but we've got Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Indiana, Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State, uncle, ut, Austin and Vanderbilt. This person's been a data engineer in their pre MBA career. They want to get into consulting or potentially investment banking. They're not really sure yet. They have a 317 on the GRE and a 3.2 undergraduate GPA. They've had a couple years of experience and they're not applying just yet. They're going to apply when they're at more like the four year mark of experience. But they just wanted to get our kind of early take on their profile. They provided some additional context which is that they studied computer science engineering at a top three public university. They were a three sport varsity athlete and they mentioned that although they have a 3.2 GPA, it was really low, like 2.8 after the first two years and then they got their act together. So they have a really strong kind of upward trend in their gpa. They did, as I say, they've had a couple years of work experience so far as a data engineer. No promotions yet, but that's not abnormal for the company that they're in in terms of the time that they've put in so far. And they also shared that their GRE of 317 was their first try and they think they might be able to get the score up. And again, in case people are interested, the breakdown on their GRE of 317 was a 1160 on the quant, which is the 53rd percentile and a 157 on verbal, which is the 73rd percentile. So Alex, what do you make of this candidate?
• 31:02
  Speaker C: I mean I like this candidate in as much as they're thinking two years ahead in terms of applying to MBA programs. They also have a very reasonable list of target scores which also includes our sponsors. So that's always very good.
• 31:17
  Speaker A: Right, go Vanderbilt.
• 31:18
  Speaker C: Yeah, no, it's fantastic. But I mean, so they're obviously all very good schools but they're being a bit more realistic with their school selection I think at this juncture. Now clearly over the next two years they have the potential to really influence their overall profile by continuing in their role, doing very well, showing that growth and impact, hopefully getting some promotions along the way, et cetera, et cetera. So we don't know as much about what they're doing outside of work. So you know, take, you know, getting a little bit more involved and potentially getting a bit more leadership out of that avenue might be something to explore a little bit further. So that could be good. So the 317 GRE, I mean they've got plenty of time to prep really hard to push that GRE into the sort of mid-320s to the extent that they can. And I have no doubt that they're smart. You know, they're data engineer, they're a Comp Sci major whilst a three time varsity athlete. I mean they recovered their GPA to 3:2 after a probably a reasonably poor start, trying to manage their time, et cetera, et cetera. So I actually think they're probably very smart so they can really drive that GRE score up I think. And yeah, in two years time come back to the table. They really do want to get clarity on those goals. But again they're two years out of applying so it's not surprising they're still considering a couple of different avenues. But by the time they apply they really need to go all in on one pathway and make that make sense. So whether it's consulting or banking, whatever it might be, really buy into it and make that the anchor for the overall narrative.
• 33:23
  Speaker A: Yeah, I would definitely echo that. It's great that they're two years out, so love to see it. It's just great to have that much time to get things in order. And I would argue that their final two years they talk about this upward trajectory and how they got their act together. But the only way that that's going to be really believable is if the GRE SC is reflective of those last two years in school as opposed to the first two years. And right now with a 317, they risk kind of bringing it down a bit. Right. So I think like you say, if they prepare for the test, take it again, push that score into the mid-320s, then sudden you're like, okay, yeah, this is a solid student. Let's look at those last two years of grades and this very recent test score. And that's going to set the bar. And that will be what allows them to get access to some of the top schools on their list. In theory, yeah. But I think there's a lot of time and they can do this. I mean, this is. Most people take these tests more than once. It's totally common. And most people improve when they take it again. So. Yeah, but I think really interesting profile and there's a lot, you know, we didn't even talk that much about the varsity sports. And I mean, yeah, they are in one of the sports in particular, they're really strong and continue to play and compete and win money in competitions and stuff. So, yeah, there's a lot to like here. They just have some work to.
• 34:42
  Speaker C: Yeah, very good.
• 34:43
  Speaker A: All right, let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number three. So our final candidate this week comes from a decision wire entry. So we've now entered that time of the year, Alex, where we've got people who can't decide where to go. An embarrassment of riches. You know, in this case, this person was admitted to Chicago, Booth and Wharton. They were given $130,000 scholarship at Booth, and over at Wharton, they were offered $100,000 scholarship. So lots of money. They want to work in venture capital or private equity. They also mentioned that they sort of have a specific interest in pharma. And so I don't know if that means potentially wanting to work in kind of doing VC or PE that is in the healthcare domain or what that might mean, but that's kind of their goal. They had a 685 on the GMAT and they had a 3.75 GPA. So very, very strong stats. They're located in Boston and they're just kind of wondering where to go. And so, Alex, what do you make of this? It's kind of an interesting dilemma.
• 35:49
  Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I mean, I hate to sound sort of elitist or whatever, but I would remove the scholarship from the equation completely in this case. So the differential is 30,000, which, you know, obviously for many candidates that's a lot of money. So I'm not discounting that. But for A candidate that's seeking this type of career trajectory and the opportunities they're going to get out of their program, if they're able to pursue this career trajectory, will overwhelm that 30,000 differential, I think. Right. So my point is, which of these two programs, if you know evenly, can give them best access to those opportunities that they're seeking? And I do think in this case it's going to be Wharton.
• 36:42
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's an interesting. I mean, so there was a few things that came to my mind. Number one, I agree with you. The money's not so different that it's like night and day. You know, sometimes you see someone with like 150 from one school and 20 from the other, then you start to say, okay, this is a big deal, but these are closer. But there were two things that they said that jumped out at me. So number one, they mentioned this kind of pharma angle. And then I started to think, well, Wharton is just world renowned in healthcare and all things healthcare management, pharma, et cetera. So they even have a special major if you're interested in following that sort of path. So I think that gives Wharton a bit of an edge. But also when you look at the numbers when it comes to private equity placements and vc, again, Wharton's out in front. So those signals point you in that direction. The only other thing I was going to say is that the cost of living in Philadelphia is actually lower than the cost of living in Chicago, particularly where rent is concerned. I think the reason to discount some of these differences in scholarship money is that some of it may come out in the wash anyway when you start to look at what it costs to rent an apartment in these two cities. In any event, I'm glad they shared this because it is an interesting dilemma, but I do think the signs point towards Wharton in this particular candidate's case.
• 37:57
  Speaker C: Yeah, I completely agree. And we had a couple of other folks, including Elliot, my boss, your colleague, contributing to that conversation on Decision Wire. And I think, yeah, the conventional wisdom would point this decision to war.
• 38:15
  Speaker A: Yeah, agreed. And again, obviously it's always important to do your due diligence, talk to current students, talk to alums, et cetera. But yeah, this is. And I just want to do make a plug if you do get into schools and have this sort of dilemma like share it on Decision Wire because there are a number of people on the site. You, Alex, Elliot, sometimes I'll chime in, but other, even members of the community are going to chime in. And I think it's quite useful to sort of put these ideas out there and debate them. So very, very good stuff. Yeah. All right. Very long episode today, Alex, but we did have a lot to cover and you picked great candidates, as always, to surface some interesting dilemmas. So let's do it next week all over again. Hopefully things will be a little bit quieter, but. But. Because it's been a whirlwind. But I'll see you next week.
• 38:57
  Speaker C: Not too quiet. Very good. Stay safe, everyone. Take care.