Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 462: From Brazil, Booth part-time. New York schools, only. Investment banking to private equity

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MBA Wire Taps 462: From Brazil, Booth part-time. New York schools, only. Investment banking to private equity · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker A: This is Jim Holman from Indiana University.
• 0:01
  Speaker B: Kelley, and you're listening to the Clear Admit Admissions podcast. Welcome to the ClearAdmit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm Graham Richmond, and this is your Wiretaps for Monday, December 15, 2025. Looking for an MBA experience where you're truly seen, supported and inspired to grow at Vanderbilt Business, you'll discover a personalized learning environment that elevates your potential and turns ambition into action. Whether you're switching careers or accelerating your current path, the Vanderbilt MBA offers a customizable curriculum, exceptional outcomes, and a community committed to your success. Propel your future with a program invested in who you are and who you're becoming. Vanderbilt is 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. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, how are things going this week?
• 1:15
  Speaker A: Very good, thank you, Graham.
• 1:17
  Speaker B: So on this episode, we're going to tackle the FT's European Business School rankings. Employment reports have come in from Stanford and Stern. We've got a handful of admissions tips, and as always, and we're also going to hear from real humans at Booth and Emory, and we're going to profile our candidates as usual. But Alex, I got to say, I'm a little worn out because we did this massive event. You know, yesterday we recorded this kind of decision day watch party. It was a lot of fun, though. Thanks for jumping on that, too.
• 1:45
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, the live stream. I mean, it was obviously an idea from one of our colleagues, Mike. I think Mike did a great job setting it all up, you hosting, getting other admissions officers to participate. And yeah, I think it was a hugely successful first go at it. And presumably we'll have these watch parties now for each of the first and second rounds, picking the busiest day when schools are releasing decisions.
• 2:15
  Speaker B: Yeah, it was really fun because it was almost like being on one of those election night shows because we were go into the board, which in this case is Livewire, to see what people were posting. And we had a bunch of people watching obviously on YouTube and sending along comments and thanks. And there was one person who really jumps out at me who was with us the entire time and was waiting on word from Georgetown. And we literally had the Dean of Admissions from Georgetown pop on the live stream. And then this person posted to YouTube that they later got a call from Georgetown saying they got in. So it was just a lot of fun to kind of share in that Experience with everybody. So, yeah, kudos to Mike on our team. Yeah, a lot of fun. Speaking of live streams, we're doing one tomorrow, December 16th at noon Eastern. Just go to Bit Ly Caoutubelive. You and I will be there to take questions, talk about people's decisions, dilemmas and round two strategy. So that'll be fun. We've been having a good time doing those every month and we're doing this one a little bit earlier in the month because of the holidays, so. Should be good though.
• 3:20
  Speaker A: You're skipping a step here, Graeme.
• 3:22
  Speaker B: Uh oh, what did I skip? Oh yeah. What deadlines are coming up this week?
• 3:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, what's going on? I mean, obviously we hosted this live stream watch party because last week was a mega week for top programmed releasing decisions. No doubt about that. In fact, on that particular day, Kellogg rolled out decisions, Harvard rolled out decisions, Wharton rolled out decisions, and it goes on and on. But this upcoming week we've still schools releasing decisions. So for this upcoming week we've got Marshall, Jones, McCombs, Keenan, Flagler, Owen and Foster, all scheduled to release decisions. Columbia Kelly have qualified next week. Their decisions will be released by those dates. So I think we've already seen some action coming out of Kelly. But yeah, the decision release season hasn't completed yet for round one and we should see some pretty good activity next week.
• 4:22
  Speaker B: Yeah. All right, so that sounds good. So everyone stay tuned for those results and as always, we've got our fingers crossed. If you're listening and waiting on a decision, we really hope you get good news. Alex, one thing that we did on the website recently is that the FT published their ranking of European business schools. And this, I want to be clear, this is not a ranking of MBA programs. It's sort of they rank the institutions overall based on their portfolio of mba, mim, Executive MBA as well as Executive education. So it's a very broad ranking. And you know, I was talking to you about this a little bit bit before we came on air and the way it shaked, they did 100 schools, but the top 10 ended up being INSEAD, HEC Paris, London Business School, ESCP, ESE in Barcelona, Bocconi in Milan, ESSEC which is in France, University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, edec, also in France, and EM Leon, which is also in France. So France grabbed, I believe, six out of the top 10 spots. But I do want to say I kind of worry about this ranking. I think from where I sit, I feel like it obscures the true strength of any individual program. Because most candidates are applying to just one school or one program specifically, not four at once. So they're applying. You're not going to apply to the MIM and the MBA and some executive education offering at a given school. You're really looking at one thing. And so I don't know, I'm just thinking of one example that jumps out at me is like Cambridge Judge. So if I want to get an MBA at Judge, I look at this list and this ranking and they're showing up as number 22. But I feel like that could be misleading because their MBA program is obviously much better than 22 in Europe. So I don't know what you think about this. I know you're affiliated to LBS because you do some teaching in the programs there, but what do you make of this? Because it is an interesting type of ranking.
• 6:15
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean I work in LBs's online executive education program so I'm quite thrilled that they were number three, probably due to the course that I work on. No doubt. But no, I mean I completely agree with you. I think it's a difficult ranking to make a lot of sense of because if you are looking across the board at doing some online executive education, I'm not sure again that this ranking steers you in the right direction. Much like as your example illustrated, if you're seeking a full time MBA program, I'm not sure this ranking necessarily steers you in the right direction. So I'm not entirely sure who this ranking is for.
• 6:58
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean it's kind of an interesting exercise but at the end of the day I think it's mostly about selling newspaper subscriptions.
• 7:07
  Speaker A: And I'm a huge fan of the FT by the way.
• 7:10
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, great publication, absolutely. Um, at any event. So we'll move on from that. But it was, I just figured we should share that. Uh, the other thing we've been doing is because we're in this big decision phase and we're leading into round two, we've published a lot of admissions advice on the site. So we have a tip about how do you choose between schools if you were very lucky and got into multiple programs. We also have a tip called five Tips for Making the Best of the Wait List. And you know, that's a good one. I mean, and I'll just. Because I know not everyone goes right over to the website. I'll just mention that you should read the full article. But the gist of it is know and follow the rules. Communicate if you can. If a school allows you to keep in Touch. And that's really specifically with like your waitlist manager, if you have one. Learn about what letters of support are and do some contingency planning, like don't go all in and assume you're going to get in off a wait list. So that's on the site. If you're on a waitlist, you need to go read that. And we have a whole video that you and I recorded that goes into a lot of detail on this stuff. We also did a tip, Alex, about what to do if you didn't get in anywhere. And it's a post called Round One Rejection Reflections. And I think it's pretty helpful in terms of helping folks to dust themselves off and get back out there. And then finally we did a big tip around just essay writing and that's been edited. I believe this has your handiwork all over it, Alex, because there's a section in there that I think was added maybe you know, sometime in the last six months about AI and like, you know, how to use AI. And obviously there are a lot of general writing advice in there too, but there's some good stuff in there, so check that out if you're going to be working on essays in Round two.
• 8:52
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I would argue that this is currently the most popular use of our chatbot right now is folks putting in draft essays.
• 9:01
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 9:01
  Speaker A: And asking for feedback. And I think that's a really good use case. And especially those of you who are getting ready for Round two, just think of our chatbot as an independent sort of non biased sort of colleague, providing you great guidance and feedback. Why not?
• 9:21
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's really cool. I mean, I love the way we've built this. I mean, it's built with help from OpenAI's platform, obviously, but it is. We've got this brain that we keep feeding whenever we interview an admissions director or whenever you and I record a podcast or any admissions advice we publish on the site is all going into this. And so the thing's getting smarter and smarter by the day. Well, technically by the week. Right. Because you do these uploads once a week, but still. So, yeah, great resource. We also had a chance this past week to catch up with current students at Chicago Booth and emericua. So I'll just share a little bit of what we learned. Specifically, we caught up with Ava. She's at Chicago booth. She's 29, originally from New Orleans, Louisiana. She went to the College of William and Mary and studied sociology and government. And then she went back home to New Orleans and she founded an IT recruiting agency called Tech Chicks, and she's been running this thing for, like, seven years. And then she has now just left her. I don't actually. Maybe it's still running, but she's moved on to get her mba. And we asked her, well, why did you choose Booth? And she said, the culture at Booth is nothing short of outstanding. The students, faculty, and staff really take the Pay it Forward motto to heart. Even before I was admitted to Booth, students were so willing to give their time to me, to connect me with helpful resources and share insight into the program. I knew that if I were to attend Booth, I would gain a lifelong network of allies and champions who could help me tackle issues and grow, and then I would do the same for them. So that's Ava, Entrepreneur who is headed off to Booth. Pretty nice things she had to say about the school.
• 11:07
  Speaker A: No, absolutely fantastic. I just wonder if she saw the writing on the wall with the current administration in the US and decided to close her business and go get a great mba.
• 11:18
  Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, because maybe female focus.
• 11:22
  Speaker A: Clearly, her business was aligned with DEI stuff. Right. Which I'm a huge fan of, by the way.
• 11:29
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 11:32
  Speaker A: So, yeah, no, absolutely fantastic.
• 11:34
  Speaker B: Yeah. And it's just impressive, too, to have. I mean, she's started around that company for seven years, so it wasn't one of these, like, oh, I just started this company a year ago, so very good stuff. We also caught up with Ryan, who's a current first year at emory, goizuera. He's 33. He's from a place called Canadian Texas.
• 11:55
  Speaker A: The.
• 11:56
  Speaker B: And he was in the military. He was, I guess, working. Let's see. So he went to one of the US Military academies, studied systems design and management, and ended up serving in the army as an infantry officer for five years. Also Special Forces officer in training, and then eventually a Special Forces officer. And we asked him, well, how did you choose Emory? And he said, emory first stood out to me because of their reputation as a top 20 national program and the location going to the welcome weekend sold it to me, though, as it was really the feel of the community and the sense that Guizuera placed great value on giving back to society. That sealed my decision. So, yeah. So interesting kind of military candidate who's now at Emory and seems to be having a good time. There was a lot more in the interview that I can't.
• 12:47
  Speaker A: And you were talking to the Emory admissions officer yesterday about these sort of welcome events and stuff, right?
• 12:55
  Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. So Emery, Rachel from Emory jumped on the. The live stream and, and yeah, they. And in fact, I can't now. I'm going to get everything mixed up. But I feel like they were actually having a. They do a number of different things to welcome. Like, there was even something, I think, last night that she was getting ready for, for the Round one, folks. So they do. I think they do a big blowout welcome weekend, but they also have, like, almost immediately, these kind of, if you're in the area, come on, you know, come by campus and they have these little gatherings. So lots going on. Yeah, it was really fun to connect with those admissions officers yesterday and to see, you know, I mean, it's a hard job to go through all these candidates, you know, applications and I mean, you know, Alex. But it's such a great moment when they're making these calls or getting word out to the incoming class. So lots of fun.
• 13:39
  Speaker A: Yeah, very good.
• 13:41
  Speaker B: We also have two employment reports, which I'll run down with you and then we can get into our candidates for this week. But Both Stanford and NYU Stern have published the Class of 25 stats. So we'll start with Stanford. They had a similar class size and actually a greater percentage this year seeking employment. So it's still quite low as far as MBA programs go. But 63% of Stanford students in that class were looking for work. That's up from 58%. 90% of those looking had an offer within three months of graduation. The median base salary, $185,000. It's actually unchanged from last year. Here's where things get interesting in terms of what industries people went into. 35% of those looking for jobs and heading off to take a job went into technology. That's up from 22%. More than a 10% gain. It's actually a 13% gain there. Finance remained very strong, but is now second at 33%. They were 37% last year. Consulting drops to 11% down from previously. It was at 14%. Healthcare and energy sectors at 5% and 4% respectively. Pretty similar to last year. And then the last bit I have for Stanford is where did people go geographically? And that comes down to the West Coast. 55% landed on the West Coast. That's up 10% from last year. 28% went to the Northeast. And as you might imagine, that leaves very little left. About 2% to the Midwest, 1% to the south, 6% to the southwest and 3% to the mid Atlantic. So those are the numbers from Stanford, obviously, with the regional stuff. I mentioned that 10% uptick on the West Coast. Placements. Well, that corresponded to a little bit of a drop with the Northeast. So The Northeast had 31% last year and it was 28% this year. So everything else was pretty steady. But what do you make of this, Alex?
• 15:47
  Speaker A: Let's hope the tech bubble doesn't burst. I mean, I do think this is probably a reflection of this sort of gold rush to the AI boom, as it were. Obviously we're seeing a lot of news reports about folks getting laid off, but at the end of the day, there's a lot of money taking big bets on the rollout of how Genai is going to roll out. And perhaps that's reflected in some of these top schools employment reports, seeing an uplift in tech placement. Because if you're betting money, you've got to be betting on great people too.
• 16:27
  Speaker B: Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, that the types of people may be losing their jobs in some of these bigger tech companies may not be the ones that they're hiring for out of top MBA programs. So, yeah, in any event, pretty impressive numbers for Stanford. I mean, they always are. But it was interesting to see. I think there was a lot of debate would these numbers come down a bit from last year? Are we seeing the kind of slowing in hiring and stuff? But they're doing quite well there.
• 16:57
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, very good. But I'm guessing it's to do with the financing of this tech sort of potential rollout of AI.
• 17:10
  Speaker B: So let's turn our attention over to NYU Stern. Across the other side of the country in New York City, again, similar class sizes. 83% of stern graduates in the class of 25 were looking for work. So you see a big difference there. 83% versus I think it was 63% at Stanford. Right. So slightly different profile offers within three months of graduation. For the class of 25 at Stern, 86.3%. So good number there. Median base salary $175,000. Average signing bonus, 40K. So big, big numbers there. Top industries. So 36% go into financial services. That's pretty similar to last year. 32% went into consulting. Let's call it 33 because it's 32.8. So 33% in consulting. 37% had gone into consulting last year, so that number's down a bit. Technology 14%. That's up from 9% last year. Consumer packaged goods and healthcare each sitting at 3.4%. Those numbers are not so different from prior years in terms of where people landed. 82.4% landed in the Northeast. That's really similar to last year. Seven percent out to the West Coast. That's actually up from 4.4% last year. Three and a half percent to the Mid Atlantic. Close to 2% in the south and 1% in the Midwest. About 3% ended up overseas. So those are the numbers from Stern. What do you think about Stern?
• 18:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, again, very good numbers. Reflective that Stern's not in the M7, but just outside. And I think the 175k compensation is really strong. Obviously, they're based in New York City, so it's generally a little bit higher there. 82% to the northeast. That's probably 81% to New York City. So we know they're highly regional, but there's nothing wrong with being highly regional when you ride in New York City. Right. So that doesn't surprise me. A little bit of uptick on tech, but obviously a much smaller. From a much smaller number than Stanford. Stanford would be more renowned for that area and so forth. But yeah, really, really good numbers.
• 19:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, very strong. And I think it is interesting they also saw that little bit of an uptick to the number of people they're sending to the west coast, which I think coincides with that tech thing. Right. So it's probably a related.
• 19:45
  Speaker A: I mean, they would correlate.
• 19:46
  Speaker B: Yeah, totally. So in any event, more of those to come. I know schools are. Are finally getting all these reports out, and so there'll be more of those that we feature on shows as we head into the winter here. But Alex, we probably need to get into our candidates for this week. I did want to tell people to be on the lookout for a special edition of the podcast that should pop up in your feed here, where I sat down with the CEO of the Forte foundation, which is an amazing organization that helps women find their way to business school and to really great career success over the long haul as well as. So I had a great time connecting with Alyssa from Forte, so stay tuned for that. If it's not in the feed now, it'll be very soon. But, Alex, anything else on your mind before we start talking about candidates?
• 20:32
  Speaker A: I'm just going to take full credit for pushing you to do this podcast because it's about time we learned a lot more about what Forte is truly about. I'm a big fan of what they're doing, but I don't understand how it all works yet. So I'm really looking forward to listening to that podcast.
• 20:48
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's. She did a great job of explaining it too. So for sure, all Right, well, let's, let's move on.
• 20:53
  Speaker A: Let's kick on.
• 20:54
  Speaker B: All right, here we go. This is WireTaps candidate number one. So our first candidate has one school on the target list, and that is Chicago Booth. They're looking to start in the fall. They're currently working as a project manager. They're thinking about maybe something entrepreneurial in the longer term post MBA. They have a 313 on the GRE and they have a 3.2 undergrad which they earned in Brazil. They have 12 years of work experience located in Chicago. And this candidate said that they listen to the podcast every week without exception. So, Alex, I'm guessing that's what got them on the show here, because I know you tend to be a little biased when someone says they like the show.
• 21:36
  Speaker A: Of course, of course I'm biased. But I also think this is a, a little bit of a unique ring pool that we're going to discuss.
• 21:41
  Speaker B: Yes. So this candidate, as I said, from Brazil, but went to the US in 21 to get a Master's in Construction Management at University of Illinois at Chicago. They did exceedingly well in that program as well. And they, they really want to go part time. They can't really do a full time mba. Also, they're a bit older and have quite a bit of experience. They have nine years of experience at the largest development and construction company in Brazil. Brazil. They worked in the field as a civil engineer. They also worked at a, they spent a few years working at a mid sized construction company. So they have a lot of experience, all of it in the same domain here. And they say that they want to become an entrepreneur ultimately and build their own development and construction company. They do know that their standardized test, which I mentioned earlier was a 313 on the GRE is not their strong suit. They're a little concerned about that. Their Undergrad was a 7.2 out of 10, which converts to that 3.2 that I cited earlier. They're using Google to make that conversion, but I would argue that they're probably best off just sharing it as it is. They earned an undergrad in civil engineering. They then also did a Project Management MBA in Brazil where they had a 3.9. And then as I mentioned earlier, they've done this master's in engineering in the US with a 3.77. But Alex, what do you make of this? Because I know they're very worried about the test score. I would also ask you the question. They have a lot of degrees already and so one of which is from Brazil and is a management degree. So what do you make of this?
• 23:13
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, they don't want to come across as like you say, a degree collector, but I can kind of understand the desire to get an MBA from a top school and I can kind of understand the interest in actually doing the MBA part time. They're further along in their career, they don't want to disrupt their career at this point and so on and so forth. They're actually based in Chicago. Right. So yeah, I'm not sure that was clear. But so they're currently in the sort of Chicago area developing their career. So I got them presume that they can show really good sort of work output in terms of impact and growth and so on and so forth outside of work. They, you know, lots of sports, some volunteering activity, etc. Etc. That looks really nice. But you know, again, they're applying to Booth's part time program whose criteria will be slightly different to the typical sort of full time profile. And the sort of the elephant in the room, as it were, is going to be this 313 GRE score, which is heavily biased towards having a low verbal score. So I asked them, you know, what about taking the toefl that can help sort of demonstrate your English sort of proficiency. And because they have the master's degree already in the us, they don't need to take the toefl. So is it. I guess one of the questions is, despite that, is there some value in taking the toefl? They don't really want to retake the gre. And you know, obviously I'm a big proponent that this GRE is going to potentially limit them. So if I was them, quite honestly, Graham, I think this warrants a phone call to the Booth admissions office that runs the part time admissions because again, part time is a little bit different in terms of exactly what they look for and so on and so forth. And Booth might be really fine with the 313 GRE score because they already have a master's in the US so I think it would behoove them to go in that direction. And then if they're not fine with it, at least they will get that direct feedback. And then they've got to figure out a better way to mitigate that lower verbal score. So that would be my advice to them. I really think that they're probably a really cool individual, lots of great work experience, nice outside of work, but 313 is going to hurt them. They're applying to one of the best programs in the World. Even though it's still their part time program, it is one of the best in the world.
• 26:11
  Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. I think that they're in Chicago, so they need to go to an info session, have a conversation with an admissions officer, whatever might be available to them to do. Because when I look at this candidate, I'm like, wow, what interesting work experience. They have a very clear set of goals. They would bring a lot into a classroom. And they've clearly done very Master's in the states. 377. And in so much as you're using the GRE and these GPAs to measure whether someone can hack it in a program like Booth, I feel like they clearly would be able to. I mean, these numbers are strong from their degrees. And what would be nice is that I would imagine that by going in person and having a conversation, they might be able to convince whoever's talking with them that, oh yeah, this person has strong communication skills and English is not a problem, which I'm guessing must be the case. They live in the us they did a Masters, so hopefully it's just they're not testing well. So, yeah, so I would advise having that conversation because that might relieve a lot of the stress. And it sounds like they're not going to be able to take the test again because they have some other stuff coming their way. So. Yeah, so yeah, they just need to do that. I mean, again, the Masters should weigh quite heavily because it's from a school in town there too. So in any event, yeah, I wish them the best of luck and I want to thank them for sharing. They gave us a ton of information. I really appreciate that. It made it easy to talk about their, their candidacy. So good luck to them and hopefully they'll continue to tune in even after they get very good news after this all happens. But any event, let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two. So our second candidate this week is applying only to two schools. So we got from one school, now we've got two. This person's applied to Columbia and Stern and they want to start in the fall. They've been working as an academic research assistant in psychiatry prior to business school, and they're thinking about consulting after business school, specifically in the healthcare domain. They have a 3.9 undergraduate GPA which they earned from a top 20 public university in the United States. But this candidate is an international student. They're originally from Hong Kong, they live in New York now, have been working. They want to stay in New York after business school and that's why they're exclusively looking at Columbia and Stern. They're going to be applying in the January rounds for these schools. They have yet to take the GRE but they're going to take it any day now. Apparently they've been earning 320 on a. They took a practice test and they're hoping to get kind of in the sort of 320 to 325 range with their score. They did mention that they were an honors student. Psychology, let's see, Psychology honors, Communication honors. They were a research scholar. They received several awards for their thesis and their job since they graduated has been working at an Ivy League school as a research assistant in the Department of State Psychiatry. They've done that for three and a half years. They've led seven different projects on teen mental health and digital technology. They've collaborated with 15 different clinical sites. They've trained 10 new research assistants during their time there and they've done a lot of UX development and testing. They've recruited participants in studies. So they've done a bunch of publishing and event. They want to pivot though into healthcare consulting to make tangible impact on healthcare organizations operations to improve patient outcomes. So Alex, I mean I've been reading a lot recently about, you know, the law that was put in place in Australia to protect teens from social media. And so it sounds like this person's, you know, having a lot of exposure to that intersection of like digital technology and mental health and they want to go and do consulting and healthcare. What do you think their chances are? I mean what do you make of their candidacy and any thoughts on Columbia and Stern for these areas?
• 30:10
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean obviously what they're working on as a research assistant is hugely topical right now as you pointed out with the Australia law in Europe we're trying to protect our teams a little bit more aggressively and so on and so forth. So I think, yeah, this makes their experience, I think a little bit more interesting. They will be a non traditional candidate. It let's not beat around the bush. But non traditional can be an advantage and it can be a disadvantage. It's an advantage if they can really then show their fit and their rationale for getting the MBA and it makes sense for their career goals which again I think it does. Right. They'd want to transition into sort of the business side of healthcare through consulting and so on and so forth. So, so, so I think that all makes sense. And a 3, 9 GPA is absolutely fantastic and so forth. I kind of hope that they do a little bit better than just a 320 on the GRE. They. I think they said between 320 and 325, but I think that GRE score may become the weaker part of their overall profile unless they get it into that 325 to 330 bracket, because everything else looks super interesting. They want to stay in New York, New York City. I'm sure there's lots of candidates applying to Columbia and Stern only because of those very same reasons. So I'm not really that upset about that. But it's not. It is limiting their options. Right. So maybe they should look at Wharton also, which is only an Amtrak ride down to Philadelphia, which obviously we're quite fond of from our connections there, but they're obviously extremely strong in healthcare. Right. So that might open up some more doors for them. But, yeah, quite honestly, Graham, with a strong GRE score and good execution on their apps, I think this is a very interesting candidate.
• 32:16
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I did like the fact that they're a runner. They run a knitting and crocheting circle, so they did some choreographing as an undergrad for a dance club. So they've got a lot of other things, too. I do agree, though, that you see that 3.9 GPA, you expect a 330 on the GRE. And the one weakness that could surface would be maybe a quantitative weakness if this is a psych background. But I don't know, some of the work that's being done sounds quite quantitative in terms of research. So I hope that the GRE goes well. And I agree. I know people need to stay. This person needs to stay in New York for one reason or another, they're not willing to relocate. But I will say that if I were picking a list of schools for someone who wants to pivot into healthcare consulting. Yeah, Wharton, Duke, Kellogg, there would be schools on the list. Not to say that Columbia and NYU wouldn't also be good options, but just that they might be limiting themselves. But that's fine. They're making that decision and it happens all the time.
• 33:17
  Speaker A: So, yeah, for an extra 200 bucks or whatever the app fee is, I would stick something in a Wharton for sure.
• 33:22
  Speaker B: Just to see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in any event, I want to wish this person the best of luck, very compelling candidacy, and I want to thank them for sharing on the site. Good luck. I know they have a lot of work ahead of them over the winter break here to get those applications together for January, but best of luck. Let's Move on and talk about WireTaps. Candidate number three. So our final candidate this week has six schools on the target list. They're looking to start in the fall and the schools are Columbia, Harvard, Kellogg, Wharton, Stanford and Darden. They have been working in energy, infrastructure, private equity and after business school they're thinking about maybe doing something entrepreneurial or also maybe staying with private equity or banking. They have a GRE school score of 325. GPA is a 3.8. Seven years of work experience located in Texas and they're willing to stay there or potentially land in New York or Chicago after business school. They indicate in the notes that they are a white male, they're married, they went to a top 40 undergrad business school and that they're currently a vice president in a traditional upstream oil and gas PE firm. They've been promoted quickly a couple of times in the last four years. It's a relatively small team. So they've a lot of exposure than, you know, maybe even more so than other PE applicants. They did investment banking right out of undergraduate at a top firm for oil and gas before making the switch into pe. Very classic kind of trajectory there. They are thinking about using the MBA to transition to energy infrastructure as they think there's going to be an increased investment, an opportunity. As we've been talking about a lot on the show with regards to the demand from AI and the transition from like oil and gas to renewables as far as extracurriculars are concerned, they were, they are a junior mentor for a highly selective undergraduate program designed to get students into investment banking. They also I guess were in an undergraduate honors college. They used to do kind of, they participate in mentorship dinners with community leaders, they play in a basketball league and they started and lead a year round internship program at their firm. So Alex, what do you make of this candidate?
• 35:35
  Speaker A: I'm glad they play in a basketball league because we talked about this before we came on the show. You pointed it out. Actually a lot of their outside of direct responsibility activities are still quite work related, which is great. Right. You're someone that really steps up at your firm and does some extra stuff that's really well respected. But it's quite nice that they do something reasonably substantial outside of work also. And basketball seems to be that, that that might be the platform for this candidate. I think, you know, their work product looks really, really good. Right. So you know, investment banking to private equity, that's a really good sort of transition. It generally means that they were a good investment banker. I suppose, and so on and so forth. So that should reflect really well. You're exactly right. Right. That it's really topical. AI. Not AI, but energy infrastructure going forward with the convergence of trying to transition from climate killing fossil fuel. I'll just say that I quoted it myself. Climate killing fossil fuel. I know that's not a popular term in the US administration, but there we go. But we've got to transition from that to renewables. And coincidentally we have also got to increase the energy infrastructure to accommodate the AI, what you call them data centers. Right. So you've got these two big sort of areas that need to be tackled and a candidate like this looks really primed to. To tackle both. So I think schools will really appreciate that. 3.8 GPA. Fantastic. Again, the GRE 325, I'm not overwhelmed with it. It's probably their weakest link. You know, it'll be slightly below the medium for the, for the top M7 programs. But nevertheless, I think there's a lot to like about this profile. Graham.
• 37:44
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. The 325 does jump out as being a potential weak point because especially, you know, the GPA is. And as you said earlier, it's a good thing they're in the basketball league because if I'm going to play devil's advocate for a second, I could see a scenario where someone says, okay, another finance person, they did the banking to PE thing and obviously that's the better. That's obviously always a good sign. But extracurriculars are somewhat limited that are non work related. GRE is not going to pop off the charts. And so then you start to say, well, is it enough for a Stanford or a Harvard or a Wharton? And that's going to be the big question for me. But they have some other schools on the list. They have Darden, they've got Columbia, they've got Kellogg, so we'll see where the chips fall. I do think their goals, as you said, make a ton of sense and they're quite compelling and it does sound like the work experience is really strong and they have some nice kind of badges to show for that with promotions and stuff. So yeah, I'll be curious to hear how this sort of works out. But I like their chances. I mean, I think that across this portfolio, portfolio of schools, they'll get a hit somewhere.
• 38:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 38:53
  Speaker B: And as we know, you only need one.
• 38:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think I might be a bit more enthusiastic about this profile than you are. But nevertheless, I think a really strong candidate. Just the GRE doesn't pop like everything else seems to pop.
• 39:08
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's fair. In any event, I want to thank them for sharing, obviously, as always, and wish them the best of luck as they get those applications in. And yeah, keep us posted. We always love to hear how things turn out. Alex, thanks for picking these candidates out. It's been a whirlwind week and we've got another crazy week ahead here with more decisions coming and our live stream on Tuesday at noon Eastern. So everyone tune in for that. Alex, I'll see you. Well, I'll see you for that. And then obviously we'll do another episode of the podcast next week.
• 39:37
  Speaker A: Very good. Stay safe, everyone. Take care. Sam.