Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 504: Indian applicant, pharma focus. Deferred admissions, 715 GMAT

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MBA Wire Taps 504: Indian applicant, pharma focus. Deferred admissions, 715 GMAT · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign.
• 0:17
  Speaker B: Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm Graham Richmond and this is your Wiretaps for Monday, July 27, 2026. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, how are things going this week?
• 0:29
  Speaker A: Good, thank you, Graeme.
• 0:30
  Speaker B: So is there anything else you want to say about the World Cup? I mean, when we last, you know, spoke, we didn't know who's, you know, who had won. We knew that our teams were out, but. Any thoughts?
• 0:40
  Speaker A: I have a couple of thoughts. Obviously, I'm very happy that. Well, not obviously, but I'm very happy that Spain won. I just think they played better. Right. And I'll leave. I'll leave it at that to anyone listening from Argentina. But I thought England did all right, that playoff or whatever you call the. The losers tie game. So. So, yeah, all is. All is not woeful for England.
• 1:07
  Speaker B: Yeah. And it was, you know, the tournament as a whole was a nice, I think, experience of, you know, bringing people together in times where it seems like we're more and more divided. So that was a nice plus, too, on the kind of more big picture stage of things. But, yeah. So in any event, onwards to other things. You're not a follower of it, but this, you know, this is the final. I guess the Tour de France has just wrapped up, so I don't know what happens next, what we start to focus on, but we'll see. I know for me, it's MBA admissions because we are now getting into the new season. I've been having so much fun. I've been doing these podcasts. There are a whole bunch that I've recorded now with admissions deans. And so the first of those aired last week, so we'll get into that. But this week we've got an all New York City ADCOM Q&A thing happening. We're gonna hear from both, gonna share some stuff from both Stern and Columbia. We've got an admissions tip on the ever important resume, which is a big piece of anyone's application, some exciting news out of MIT Sloan and a look behind the curtain on career reports. And of course, you picked some candidates for us to talk about. So I guess we should probably get into it. I did wanna mention that we're in the middle of our essay Insight webinar series. So I did three of them last week and there are two more this week. So tomorrow at noon Eastern, July 28th, we're going to be sitting down with admissions directors from kellogg, Johns Hopkins, UNC, Kenan Flagler, and U. Washington Foster and then on Wednesday the 29th at noon Eastern, I'm going to sit down with admissions directors from Columbia Business School, Cornell, London Business School, Michigan, Ross, and Yale, Som. So busy week. If you're applying to any of these schools, you have to come to these events. They're really insightful, and I don't say that because I'm offering advice during them. It's not at all me. I'm just asking questions of the admissions deans, and they always give out such great nuggets because we really get into it on the essays and why they're asking the questions, et cetera. So it's been fun. Done three of them last week and a couple more to go here.
• 3:10
  Speaker A: Yeah. So at the time of recording, you've completed two of them. You got one tonight. What have you learned from the two that you've completed? Graham?
• 3:17
  Speaker B: It's been, you know, there's been a lot of, like, there's been so much discussion about AI and authenticity. Yeah. And, you know, I think all the schools are accepting of the fact that people use these tools, but they're also really cautious about, you know, to what extent you want to, you know, you don't want to cloud your own voice. And so there's been a kind of drumbeat of like, hey, you know, we'd rather hear something that's imperfect but you. Than, you know, something that's like, fully polished. And, you know, the other thing, I guess, is just that schools have been shifting a lot of pieces of the application into video. So, you know, you take a school like Berkeley, Haas, they used to ask this essay question about what makes you feel alive when you're doing it and why. And it was kind of a fun essay where you could write about, you know, some hobby or whatever you want. And that's now a video for the second year in a row. And then we've seen that happening with. With a couple of schools, you know, moving. I think it's Tepper has a career goals question that's now a video. So there's more and more in these videos. It's so funny. They're all impromptu in the sense they're not giving you time to prepare.
• 4:20
  Speaker A: Right.
• 4:21
  Speaker B: It used to be that you would get a video question and you would have 30 or even 60 seconds to kind of think about the question and, you know, think through your answer and then record it. And in some cases, you could even do it over. Right. And now that's all seems to be going by the wayside. They're. They're giving you like 10 seconds and you've got to just give an answer and then move on. And I suspect that's also AI related. Right.
• 4:43
  Speaker A: If you give someone a minute to prepare, just go to ChatGPT and get a nice outline.
• 4:49
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So in any event, that's what's been going on. We have been, as you know, we get transcripts from these webinars and you take those transcripts and add them to the rag that drives our AI tool.
• 5:02
  Speaker A: Correct.
• 5:02
  Speaker B: So, yeah, so all these insights get into the Ask Clear Admit, which is, you know, I've certainly encouraged people to use, you know, I use it myself sometimes to just sort of like get, you know, sort of see what, what our site would have to say about a question. And it's always, I'm always impressed. So, news and notes this week, Alex. Big, big news out of MIT Sloan. They've announced a new evening MBA program. And basically from the press release it says, you know, they're going to welcome their inaugural evening cohort in August of 27. So I guess they've started, you know, the application season starting soon, if you want to apply. Students will begin the STEM designated program each August, complete a required summer term, and then graduate in May of their second year. So this is an evening program that runs roughly the duration of a traditional in person. Well, sorry, they're both in person, but a traditional full time mba. Right. So, so that's kind of interesting because sometimes these evening programs, oh, it could take you three years or more to complete. The other thing it says here is that it says a key differentiator of the program is it's primarily in person cohort based format. An increasingly rare model, the evening MBA landscape. The MIT Sloan evening MBA is designed to allow students to continue advancing in their current roles while building meaningful relationships with a close knit group of high achieving peers and engaging deeply with the broader MIT ecosystem. So I mean, I think this is big news for a couple of reasons, but one is if you look at the Northeast, MIT is now the sort of top school offering a kind of evening format. And obviously some people might say, oh, there's Chicago, Booth and Kellogg do kind of evening weekend type programs. Berkeley, there are a handful out there and obviously NYU Stern has their Langone program, which I think is on that format. So. But it is a big deal, I think for them to be coming into this space.
• 6:54
  Speaker A: Yeah. And clearly it is distinguishing itself from the more traditional part time programs with the cohort format. And literally you're graduating in two years. I think you said Two years. Right. So on a similar schedule to the full time, other than the fact that they're going to be taking classes through the summer, etc. I think it's a really interesting model and certainly in this current climate where people might be more inclined to want to keep their current roles rather than stopping them to do a full time immersive mba, this might be a really good option for those types of folks.
• 7:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, agreed. And it's interesting also that they, you know, it just when I was. So I actually had an interview with the Dean of Admissions recently, Donna Levinson at MIT Sloan for the podcast and it's not out yet, but it's coming soon. And we talked about the program and I said, oh, so but this is really for people in the Boston area. And she said, well, no, she said, you know, the commitment is two evenings a week. And she said, you know, but she said she knows a lot of folks who are considering like they work for a company that has an office in Boston so they're just going to relocate for the purposes of doing this program for a couple of years or they're remote workers and they're just going to move to Boston. And so she's, you know, her point was that you could apply from anywhere, you know, as long as you're willing to be here a couple nights a week and do the program. So it is a commitment. It's a couple nights a week and then obviously that summer term. So in any event, interesting stuff. We'll keep an eye on it.
• 8:25
  Speaker A: I would still presume the majority of folks will be Boston based.
• 8:29
  Speaker B: Oh yeah.
• 8:30
  Speaker A: But certainly in this world in which we do a lot of remote work with, you know, obviously myself included and the sort of flexibility, they'll have some folks taking advantage of that. But I would still assume that their main draw will be Boston, which again is very vibrant. Big, big, big MBA focused city. Right?
• 8:52
  Speaker B: Yeah. So any event, we'll keep an eye on that. Very interesting stuff. Other thing that we did on the website is we published this piece called what's in an MBA Employment Report? And just full disclosure, we published this jointly with, with Dartmouth Tuck. They came to us and asked if we could do something together. And basically it's the, it's Stephen Pidgeon who's the executive director of Tucks Career Services Office Office. And he, he actually has an MBA from Tuck. He used to work in the, in the kind of media and entertainment industry prior, but he currently is head of career services there. We had him on a webinar Back in March. And he was fantastic. And so I was so glad to see that he's behind this. And basically what he does is he takes the Tuck employment report and he breaks it down and there's lots of images and he's sort of showing you like how to properly assess an employment report. And I'll just give you one pro tip. He has all these kind of tips of like how to assess. And so one of the pro tips is look at the number of students for which the school is saying they had no information available. And that is a category. Right. You have students looking for work, students not, and then no information. He says this means that after having a student in their program for two years, the school had no information about the student's job search. And he says, at Tuck, this number is always zero. We know you and your job search journey. But I think, you know, his point is that there are some larger programs where you see like there's a, you know, batch of candidates who didn't provide any information to the career services office. And I think that is kind of interesting to look at as a, as a sign of like, you know, the close knit nature of a community or how, you know, how. So in any event, obviously he's writing to promote talk. I understand that. But it was just a really interesting piece because there were a number of tidbits in there about how to look at a career report.
• 10:34
  Speaker A: Yeah. And we don't have content that focuses on that. So that's really good.
• 10:38
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So in any event, that's on the site. You can read that. The other thing we did is we ran an admission tip about how you make your resume for business school. And you know, I recently was on a webinar for kind of another organization that we partner with from time to time. And they had me talking about resumes and it really got me thinking. And I think we say this in the book that you wrote, Alex, that you know, the resume is a nice starting point when you're starting to apply to business school because it's a great, like sort of way to distill your candidacy down into a single page. So in this admissions tip, we get into things like formatting and some tips about fonts and margins and, you know, tips about not using jargon, keeping it simple, and also making sure that you have balance in terms of showcasing some of those outside activities too. So it's a good tip. And there's a video that's attached to the tip on the website from our admissions academy. So that's me and you talking about resumes as well. So if you're working on your resume, you should go read the tip and watch the video.
• 11:36
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And. And we still debate. Well, I'm not sure we're still debating, but I'm still debating whether you should have a, an objective at the beginning of the resum. Because, you know, Graham's response is, well, everyone's objective is to get an MBA, but to me it's like talk about your goals, etc. Etc.
• 11:53
  Speaker B: Well, you know, it's funny you say this because one of the admissions directors that we had a. I can't remember sort of podcast I recorded or maybe one of the events we did last week.
• 12:01
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 12:02
  Speaker B: Said don't waste space on an objective. We know why you're applying to business, like, we know you're applying to business school. Just give us the.
• 12:08
  Speaker A: But I have to agree with all the outcomes.
• 12:10
  Speaker B: I know, I know.
• 12:12
  Speaker A: But sometimes I can suggest, actually. And the reason why I like the objective is obviously as someone that's interviewed a lot of candidates and you know, sometimes you might be interviewing 10, 12 candidates on a given day.
• 12:27
  Speaker B: Right.
• 12:27
  Speaker A: It's great to just have a resume that has the object, etc. Etc. Anyway, the point is there's not a perfect MBA resume, but what is clear is your MBA resume. Or don't just present your current resume.
• 12:46
  Speaker B: Right.
• 12:46
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah. That you've been using to get jobs because you're talking to a different audience, which means things like jargon need to be removed, et cetera, et cetera.
• 12:57
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So in any event, you can check that out on the site. The other thing that we continue to have our admissions director Q and A's ongoing both, both on the podcast and in the written word. Lauren on our team has been gathering those. So Lauren actually caught up with a friend of the show, Lindsay Lloyd, who's the admissions director at NYU Stern. And so I wanted to share a couple of things that Lindsay had to say about Stern. So one of the questions that we ask all the admissions directors is about what is one aspect of your MBA program that you wish applicants knew more about? And Lindsey had something interesting to say. She said, I want applicants to know how deeply AI is integrated into to the Stern MBA experience to prepare them for a future of work in which AI is changing how we lead, make decisions, collaborate, and more. This includes a new MBA AI specialization which will be available for the first time starting this fall, complete with original classes built from the ground up, including an agentic AI course. A first among Business schools, so I thought you'd be excited about that. Lindsey was sharing that, and I know it's a big deal over at cern. They've been working hard to get that in place.
• 14:07
  Speaker A: Yeah, I'd love to see the syllabus for that course. Obviously. I mean, every school should be threading AI all through their curriculum. There's no doubt in my mind. So I'm glad Stern is taking the lead on this and shouting about it, because fundamentally, if schools aren't doing this, we are sunk as an industry. So to me, this is huge.
• 14:32
  Speaker B: Yeah. And then we also got her to talk a little bit about sa, and she gives advice on each of the three main essays that Stern asks. But I wanted to focus on the second essay. And so she says here, the second essay prompt is our much loved PIK6 visual essay. It is my favorite component of our application, and applicants often tell me they really enjoyed the process of creating it. The Pick 6 provides space for prospective students to introduce themselves more personally to the admissions committee using photos, infographics, drawings, or any other images. If an applicant is wondering what to include, I would encourage them to think about the interests, hobbies, people, places, and things that are important to them. As a good place to start, applicants should briefly introduce their Pick six in, like, three sentences and include one sentence caption for each image. So I've always loved that assignment. It just seems like such an interesting exercise, and apparently the ADCOM likes it too. That's why it remains a part of their application. Application, Right.
• 15:31
  Speaker A: Yeah. No, very creative. Yeah, Very good.
• 15:33
  Speaker B: And then the last thing we asked her, is there anything else you wanted to highlight about your program or admissions process? And she says something interesting. She says, I started this interview talking about how deeply we're integrating AI throughout the Stern MBA experience, and I'd like to close it by emphasizing our incredible community and the Sterny superpower of eq. This is a common thread across all constituencies at Stern. Students, faculty, administrators, and staff. As we leverage AI to innovate and work more efficiently, our EQ skills become even more important. It's the human capital that will ultimately set Sterny's apart as successful leaders of tomorrow. So I thought that was an interesting way for her to wrap things up. And I know they do really focus a ton on both your kind of IQ and EQ at Stern.
• 16:19
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. They were the first in using EQ in admissions, basically.
• 16:23
  Speaker B: Right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 16:26
  Speaker A: As a guide for admission, so. So I'm glad that this is still a really important theme.
• 16:32
  Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. And then the only other thing I wanted to mention before we talk about our candidates this week is that we had an admissions director Q and A with Lindsay's crosstown neighbor, Tricia Bayone over at Columbia Business School. And this was a podcast that I recorded. And actually, Lindsay and I are going to record a podcast one of these days here, too. And basically I wanted to share a couple of things. So that aired last. Well, that aired last week. So it's in the feed here. Wherever you're listening to the show, you should be able to find it. But basically, there were a couple of points that Tricia made about Columbia's process that I wanted to share here. And the first was that, you know, she makes this point about how they take people from so many different types of background and that they're really looking for a rich fabric of backgrounds, you know, and that you don't need to be a banker or a consultant necessarily, that they, you know, they have opera singers, they have military folks, they have all kinds of people in the program. So just wanted to kind of, I think, make sure that people know that, you know, there's no one thing. And she goes on to say that applicants think that we are looking for someone to fit a mold, like how will they fit in to the Columbia experience? And she says, we aren't interested in that. What we want to know is how you will enhance the experience here. So what are you bringing into our program? Not how are you going to come in and fit some mold that we have sort of pre determined. So I thought that was kind of an interesting way to look at it, too. And she gives a ton more kind of admissions tips over the course of that interview.
• 17:58
  Speaker A: Yeah. And we know that diversity in the applicant pool or in the, you know, the cohort that you're bringing in enriches the learning experience for each of the individuals. No doubt in my mind.
• 18:10
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I still think back to conversations I had in my, you know, in my cohort at Wharton, you know, just the diversity of people in that room. And I'm not even necessarily talking about, you know, ethnic diversity. I mean, obviously that's important, but just, just diversity of everything, where people are from, where they work. I mean, it's amazing, right? So in any event, so I encourage FOL folks to listen to Tricia from Columbia Business School's episode on the show here. Other than that, Alex, if people want to write to us, they can write to infoearadmit.com, use the subject line wiretaps. And then I know You've picked out a couple of candidates for us to talk about this week, so I guess we should get into those.
• 18:45
  Speaker A: Yeah, let's kick on.
• 18:47
  Speaker B: All right, so this is WireTaps candidate number one. So our first candidate this week comes from a ApplyWire entry that you selected. And this candidate is from India. And they are. Where is I? Sorry, I'm having a little bit. I had a technical difficulty, Alex, pulling up their file. But I know from our discussion earlier in my notes here that this is an Indian candidate. They've been working in life sciences as a researcher and kind of like a lab. They work at a lab that helps pharmaceutical companies, you know, bring drugs to market, it sounds like. And they have a 6.7 GPA from undergrad. They've been working for eight years. And what's interesting is they said that as they've been kind of helping pharma companies conduct clinical research, they took up an online course on, like, the business of pharmaceutical and kind of analytics. And that really got them interested in business school. They also shared that outside of work, they're a Toastmasters Club officer, Art of Living volunteer, and an aspiring social media influencer in the health and lifestyle domain. They mentioned that after business school, they want to work, it sounds like in consulting, but with an angle towards healthcare. And they also listed a bunch of pharma companies. So I'm guessing that they could do, you know, they might end up kind of doing some consulting and then maybe, you know, moving into pharma on the. On the business side. Of course. One thing that you noted, and I don't see it here, and you. You noted this, is that there doesn't seem to be a test score here, so they probably haven't taken a test yet. And the other thing I failed to share because I was having trouble loading up their. Their file, is that there they have six schools on their target list. And this is actually important because we'll talk about it in a moment, but they have Dartmouth, Duke, Michigan, Kellogg, unc, and Darden. So those are the schools they're targeting. What do you make of this candidacy?
• 20:46
  Speaker A: I mean, this candidate strikes me as someone that sort of quite recently decided, well, maybe an MBA would be a good opportunity for me and so forth. They've got eight years of experience, so they're a little bit sort of longer, sort of on the longer end of that spectrum. But. So, I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. But I want to make sure that their approach to the admissions process isn't naive simply because they haven't really thought things through really well. They need to look at taking the GRE or the GMAT test. They haven't done that yet. They need to do well in that test relative to the medians of the schools that they're targeting. So, you know, it'll be on the new score. So 675, 685 or something like that would help, really help bolster their overall candidacy, I would think. But they also really need to try to target the first rounds, right, because they're going to be coming from India, which as we know is overrepresented. Even though their career profile might be slightly different, I still think targeting the first rounds is going to be quite important. Now their narrative in the sort of life sciences can play really well for them, I think, so can be quite interesting. They're working for a contract research organization that helps, you know, set up clinical research trials for big pharma companies, right. So obviously they want to jump the fence and perhaps ultimately go work for one of these big pharma companies after they've done a stint in consulting, et cetera, et cetera. So all that makes quite a lot of sense to me. But they've got quite a lot to do in the very short term to maximize their opportunity going into this season because they don't really want to wait another season again, they've already got eight years of experience and so forth. So. So they, they have a lot to do, but there's some opportunity here. Graham.
• 23:06
  Speaker B: Yeah, so I, I love the fact that they are, you know, working in a research organization and, and that they, it seems like this really developed organically in terms of them moving from the kind of clinical side to, you know, and research side into, into kind of the business side or that's what they want to do. But like you, I agree. First round, they have eight years of experience, which is on the high side. The GPA of 67 is not going to. It's 67 out of 10. Sorry, just in case. And, and that's how the Indian system works and jump off the page. Now granted they're older and so the best thing they could do, as you say, is if they come in with a really good test score, the admissions reader is going to say, okay, the six, seven is a bit low, but that was eight years ago. What's the academic aptitude of this candidate today? And the best kind of evidence of that would be the test. So they need to take the test. I know some of the schools on their list do waive the test, but I would not recommend waiving in this instance at all. So they need to take the test. The other thing I noted is that I think despite them maybe being new to the idea of getting an mba, it seems like they spent a decent amount of time assembling this list of schools which are all noted for being kind of a little bit smaller and close knit. Kellogg's the bigger, the bigger of the, of the group. But the others you look at, Darden and Tuck and Fuqua and Ross and Unc, these are all very close knit, supportive communities. And you know, I'm guessing that that's something that they maybe vibe with and want to pursue. It did occur to me that if they take the test and they get an out of the ballpark amazing score, given their interest in healthcare, they have Fuqua, they have Kellogg, these are two programs that are quite well known. Ross is increasingly known in that space too. But Wharton is a name that comes to mind as well. But it just would depend on how they do on the test, I think to some degree. Otherwise it seems like they have interesting outside activities and they tick a lot of boxes. So yeah, they got to take the test. Now those first round deadlines are going to come fast, so I'm hoping that they're currently working on the test. They didn't mention it and I know you asked them the question. They haven't responded yet, but we'll see how it goes.
• 25:06
  Speaker A: Yeah, and I think Kenan Flagler is probably good at healthcare too. Right? They're all in the research triangle along with Fuquan. So yeah, I think you're quite right in terms of they've been quite deliberate about this choice of schools they're targeting. So maybe they're not quite as naive as I'd first assumed in terms of their, their approach. But I think the number one thing we both agree on, they've got to get a great test score.
• 25:31
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So I want to wish them the best luck. I want to thank them for sharing, you know, their journey to date and, and asking for advice and yeah, our advice is go take that test, study for it, do well and probably in round one. So we'll see how it goes. Let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two. And I pulled this one up now, Alex, so there's not going to be any technical difficulties. So. So this second candidate this week comes also from an apply wire entry. This person wants to start school in the fall of 27, just like our first candidate. And they have 12 schools on the Target list. And actually I misspoke. I say they want to start school in the fall 27, but they, they want to get an admissions decision by the fall of 27. But they are deferred enrollment candidate. So they're applying now, they're senior in university or they're going to be a senior and they're going to be applying to get an offer, but then they won't be going right away. And so they have 12 schools. They've got Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Chicago, Booth, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, mit, Kellogg, Wharton, Stanford, uva and Yale. This is basically every school, I think, that offers deferred enrollment. And just as a reminder for our listeners, deferred enrollment is when you apply while you're still finishing undergrad or maybe still in a master's that you've started right away after undergrad, so you have no full time work experience yet and you apply, you get in, and then the school agrees to save you a seat in a future class while you go off and work for anywhere from two to five years. The one exception to that is Yale SOM their Silver Scholars program, which actually requires that you start the MBA immediately after you graduate from undergrad and you do the first year and then you go off and have some work experience and come back to do the second year. So a little bit different in their format. In any event, this person that we're talking about today has been doing a bunch of internships in finance, mostly late stage venture capital and investment banking. They're very interested in finance for their kind of post MBA career. So they're interested in finance, private equity, you know, vc, all that stuff. And they listed a number of firms and it's all the ones you would expect. Their GMAT score, which they've already taken, is a 715. And in case you're keeping score at home and like me, still think of the test score on the old scale, that's like a 750 or even a 760. So very high GMAT score. Their GPA is a 7.6 out of 10. This candidate also, like our first one, is applying from India. They want to land in New York City after business school. And they mentioned that they're looking at these deferred enrollment programs and they went into a lot of detail about their, you know, background. They've already done the CFA level one and they've had a number of internships, they've done some publishing, like research publications, a lot of leadership experience, you know, on campus and, and doing things as part of their undergraduate Experience and yeah, so this is someone who's very interested in finance and seems like they have a good head on their shoulders. But Alex, what do you make of this candidacy for deferred?
• 28:36
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think quite honestly they've got all the sort of ingredient to make a strong deferred admissions candidate. Right. They got a really strong test score, so that's very good. I assume their GPA is okay, 7.6 out of a tier one engineering institute, IIT, etc. Etc. They do say that their GPA was affected by a documented medical issue which, you know, they should introduce that in into the, you know, optional essay just to clarify. But they also say it was compromised a little bit by internship commitments. That really won't wash. Right. I mean the challenge that deferred admissions candidates face is that balance of really showing strength in their academic work, really showing strength in their internship work as well as their leadership on campus, etc. Etc. Right. Those are the three key areas that ADCOM will look at on top of then the test score and maybe some of the goals, etc. When they're analyzing candidates where, you know, where they don't have as much data, frankly. Right. They don't have that three or four years of experience that they can track and really make assessments based on. So presuming the 7, 6 GPA isn't particularly poor, I don't think it is, but I don't, you know, we do see folks with eights and stuff like that. Everything else does look really, really quite decent. Graham. Their internship experiences look, look like they're highbrow like in, like you say, investment banking. I see some venture capital stuff in there, some various other things. They've got some focus on biotech which you know, relates back to their undergraduate focus and so on and so forth and their leadership on campus look good and so forth. They're also doing some teaching at the undergraduate level and, and doing some years of teaching assistant, etc. So they're doing all the right things, I think. And they've got an internship lined up for, for the second part of their senior year and you know, hopefully they've got, or, you know, they'll soon have an offer in hand for their first, first full time job post undergrad and they'll know that before they need to apply because you don't need to apply to these programs for a good length of time. Right. So they've got plenty of time to fine tune things up. They're applying to a lot of programs deferred Admissions, I don't think they need to do that. And they asked me the question actually of the schools, which one should I target? Which ones am I likely to to get into? In fact, how did they say it? Because I thought my answer was quite interesting. My targets ideally would be six schools. Super happy to hear your thoughts on which schools I have the best shot at and should apply to. Those are two different questions of which there are two different answers. The schools you have the best shot at, obviously the ones at the lower end of the tier that you have in your 10 or 12 schools that they've got targeted. But the ones that they should apply. So I should have the best shot at. But the ones they should apply to are the reach schools. And why do I say that is because if they're not successful, they can come back in two or three years and reapply anyway. So I don't believe deferred admissions candidates really should spend a lot of effort targeting potentially safety type schools. Not, I mean all the schools on that list are very good schools, don't get me wrong. But this candidate does seem pretty high brow grain.
• 32:44
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's interesting. So that's good to know that they have these 12 schools on the list. But they're hoping to pare it down. And I agree with you 100%. You apply to the best schools and if you don't get in, then you apply the regular way as a just your traditional MBA application after you've worked for a couple of years. So yeah, they should aim high. They have the kind of profile that, you know, they may get an offer from one of these top schools. I just want to caution them, as you pointed out, you know, they mentioned that they are at a Tier 1 engineering institute majoring in bioengineering with a minor in management. And that's why that biotech stuff, I guess you mentioned makes sense. But they say affected by documented medical issues and internship commitments. So as you say, documented medical issues. Put that in the optional essay if you need to. I mean, I don't know, you know, that 7.6 out of 10 might be good enough. They may not even need to talk about it. But if for some reason they think their class, class rank or performance is, you know, not as good as it could be and they want to mention the documented medical issue, fine, don't mention the internship commitments as you said. That would just be a real red flag because you can't use that as an excuse. Even though I recognize, yeah, people have internships sometimes while they're studying, etc. But, but otherwise, no, this person is great. And as you point out, the. The deadlines for deferred enrollment are usually in the spring. There are some programs that will, you know, kind of allow you to apply it in any of the kind of traditional application rounds. Like I think with Yale you might be able to apply and maybe even Stanford in the fall. But there's no real reason to. Most deferred enrollment candidates are applying in in the spring, so. And that's fine. Right. So that way this person, as you say, may have more of their ducks in a row and be able to talk about that first post undergrad job that they've secured, et cetera. So in any event, good candidacy and seems like they're on, on the right track just, you know, to pair the list of schools down and yeah, get everything sorted. But I, yeah, I'm, I'm optimistic.
• 34:32
  Speaker A: Yeah. Very good.
• 34:33
  Speaker B: All right. So, Alex, that's going to be it for this week. Appreciate you picking out the candidates. We had a lot to discuss, as it turned out, with all these admissions Director Q&As and things. But let's get together next week and do it all again.
• 34:44
  Speaker A: Very good. Stay safe, everyone. Take care,
• 34:59
  Speaker B: Sam.