Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 336—Army JAG, 740 GMAT. Classical Music buff. Stern vs Kenan Flagler and Scholarship

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MBA Wire Taps 336—Army JAG, 740 GMAT. Classical Music buff. Stern vs Kenan Flagler and Scholarship · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:15
  Speaker A: Welcome to the clear Admit MBA Admissions podcast. I'm Graham Richmond, and this is your wiretaps for Monday, February 5, 2024. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, how are things going this week?
• 0:27
  Speaker B: Very good. Thank you, Graham.
• 0:29
  Speaker A: So last week was a big week in terms of Harvard issuing interview invitations and stuff. But what's on the horizon? I mean, we're still in the midst of round two, and I think there are a lot of people still waiting for word. Right. For schools they applied to with respect to interview invitations.
• 0:43
  Speaker B: Yeah. You're very good at sort of predicting something that hasn't actually happened yet as we're recording, but it's supposed. Yeah, for sure. Harvard for Wednesday. We're recording, actually Wednesday morning Europe time. So that'll be a big, big deal. Fuqua on Friday with their round two interview invites, which will be very good, too. And lots of schools that don't have these specific dates that they release, but release over a good period of time. Lots of activity from those schools in terms of interview invites, I'd say for that activity, we're starting to hit into the peak weeks for folks to expect to be hearing. And when I say that, there'll be still schools like Yale and Hass and a few others that stretch it right out. So for those that haven't received the good news yet, we're weeks away from it being too late.
• 1:44
  Speaker A: Yeah. I think I would put maybe Stanford and Stern in that bucket, too. Yeah. There's schools that just sort of trickle them out. We did see, I don't know if we talked about it last week, I can't remember because my life has been a little bit of a blur over the last week. But Chicago Booth did their invites. They all came out in a batch or two, right? Last, I think it was last week, I want to say. Yeah, so there's a lot of activity, and I think most people, if they're fortunate enough to have gotten invitations, are really in the throes of interview preparation. And we've started to run some content on the website about that, as we always do this time of year. So we've got a really nice admissions tip up about interview etiquette. There are lots of tips in there. My favorite tip is be wary of how you treat everyone that you encounter if you're going to a campus to do an interview. I just always remember it when we were at the, the people at the front desk, Renee and company, as you probably recall, they would kind of keep an eye on how people behaved, and we would kind of sometimes find out if someone was kind of a jerk while waiting and then very nice to the admissions officer they interviewed with. So anyway, there's all kinds of good advice on the website about interviewing and videos that we've recorded. Alex, you and I to accompany. The other thing I should mention is that later today, if you're tuning in, when this podcast first airs on Monday, the 5 February at noon Eastern, you and I are going to get together and do our clear admit plus monthly webinar, which is essentially an ask me anything so people can sign up for that. Just go to the website, hit clear admit plus. Anyone who's registered on the site, which is a free thing to do, can sign up and come and join this webinar. I'm looking forward to that. And then, Alex, we have a bunch of events this week. It's kind of crazy. On February 7 at noon Eastern. That's Wednesday, I'm going to sit down and moderate a panel with admissions officers from Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Harvard, and Darden. And these are all about these schools future leaders or deferred enrollment type programs. So these are for college students who are thinking about securing a seat in an MBA program while they're still in college and then going off and working for a couple of years before joining the MBA. So join us for that. We've got also, another thing that's happening is on February eigth. So Thursday again at noon Eastern, we're doing like a live chat. Ask me anything with University of California, Irvine Mirage School business. And again, that's up on our website. If you just click the events button on our homepage, you can sign up for that. And then next week on the 14th for Valentine's Day, we're going to be sitting down with Chicago, Booth, Wharton, and Yale again talking deferred enrollment. So this is for college students and anyone who's in maybe a master's program, but that they started straight out of college. So if you know anyone, if you're tuned in and you're an older candidate who's applying traditionally, but you know, younger folks out there, let them know that we're doing these events, you can sign up for these at bit Lee de Feb 24. So defeb 24, all lowercase, all one word.
• 4:47
  Speaker B: Very good.
• 4:48
  Speaker A: So it's a lot going on.
• 4:49
  Speaker B: Alex.
• 4:50
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 4:50
  Speaker B: Good luck with all that.
• 4:52
  Speaker A: Yeah, I wanted to ask you, you were actually the first one to kind of tell me about this, but it looks like LBS announced that they're going to offer a one year MBA. That's probably reverberating all the way to Fontain Blo where INSEAD is located. But what do you make of that? It sounds like it's a one year MBA offering, but only for people who already have a master's in business from either LBS or another business school. But what do you make of this?
• 5:19
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean it's for those that have those one year master's programs coming straight out of undergrad. And it doesn't have to be an LBS masters, it can come from any sort of accredited institution. I think it's a brilliant idea, quite honestly, because what we're seeing is more and more top schools creating these one year master's programs, Mims, master in finance, masters in whatever. And LBS has several of these types of programs. So one of my sort of thoughts to that has always been they're effectively cannibalizing their MBA product, their traditional MBA. And maybe someone listened because this to me is a really good sort of alternative to that. So it's providing or opening the door for these folks to still do their MBA after that sort of two or three years of experience or whatever. Whereas before those one year degree holders would find it challenging to get into a top MBA program because really it's becoming a little bit redundant. I find this move really good.
• 6:35
  Speaker A: Yeah. And also I think part of it is that it was a two year endeavor for most of them. So it's like, wow, I already did a year. Am I going to do two more years just to get the MBA? Whereas now you can kind of combine the two. Yeah. So interesting news out of lbs. They also announced they have a new dean coming on board. They've announced the replacement for, what is it? Arnie Longboy, who had been kind of head of admissions overseeing all programs. So they've had a lot of big news coming out of lbs. So interesting stuff. We'll stay tuned and see how this evolves. I did want to mention over on the website we ran two sets of real humans stories where we connected with students. The first one was at a french business school called ESCP, one of the top business schools in France. And they have a nice kind of small program. It's like 83 students. I was looking at some of the stats like 55% women and pretty much entirely international. So we connected with a bunch of students from their program and I thought you'd be interested to know that I was looking at where these folks are. So, you know, the students we spoke with are from Mauritius, Germany, via Cairo, apparently Lebanon, France and China. So very kind of international crowd. I did pull a quote. There was a woman named Cyrene, who is the one from Germany, and she said, one thing I would absolutely do, again, as part of the admissions process, is to highlight all the extracurricular projects and activities I was a part of, including the ones during my professional experience. It was very important to show my curiosity for various topics and interests that I have outside of my educational and professional paths, and to show, when applicable, how I included them in my professional career, for example, having an impact with an NGO, with the support of my company. So again, just the importance of. I mean, you and I talk about this a lot, but these sort of outside activities and interests that make someone a well rounded candidate. You don't want to shy away from that stuff. That can really often, I think, be kind of the difference maker.
• 8:30
  Speaker B: No, I agree. I think, as you said, it can be the difference maker. So I don't think it's fundamental. I. E. What is fundamental for candidates is academic record, professional experience and so forth. But what often differentiates the real quality candidate is some of this additional stuff. And we hark on about it all the time. So, yeah, it's good that this student highlights it, but if they listened to our show, Graham, they'd have known that going in.
• 9:03
  Speaker A: That's true, that's true. And I will say, I think one thing that happens is that a lot of these top schools, everyone applying kind of has the requisite numbers. And academics, everyone, let's say 50, 60%, right.
• 9:15
  Speaker B: So the point is the competitive, how do you drill down from those that are admissible to those that are admitted? And oftentimes that different point of differentiation might come from those extra, totally curricular activities.
• 9:32
  Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So the other real humans that we did was with University of Maryland, the Smith school, again, connected with six students there. They have a super small full time MBA. It's only 55 students, so it's probably very close knit. And I wanted to share a quote from Zenob, who is originally from the DC Baltimore metro area, and she said, I had a great application process, thankfully. However, I do wish I'd started and submitted my application earlier. I think it's important to reflect early and manage one's time and application deadlines. I would encourage others to overestimate the time needed and allocated towards the application process. So just good advice, as I presume, some of the folks tuned in to this show are maybe early birds. And so, yeah, getting out in front of your application journey is important. It does take more time than most people imagine.
• 10:22
  Speaker B: Yeah. Again, you can do it quickly, but the quality of the application is not going to be there. Right, exactly. And also try to avoid late rounds anyway, because even if you're admitted in a late round and the admit rates will be much lower, let's say in round three than round two. But even if you're admitted in the late round, then you've got to make decisions in a shortened timeframe in terms of where you're going. Then you've got to relocate. I mean, everything gets condensed and that's much more important for international candidates.
• 10:56
  Speaker A: Right, exactly. Yeah. So anyway, you can read on the website if you're interested in University of Maryland or ESCP in Paris. We also did a Fridays from the frontline story about Fuqua, the business school at Duke. And it's just a student sort of snapshot about her pivot to brand management. So she came in, she'd done some digital marketing work in her career and wanted to really get into owning a brand and helping with brand management for a company. So she just kind of walks through all the stuff that she did to kind of make it. And it's fascinating if you're someone who's interested in that. Definitely read the article because she just talks about some of the clubs and companies that come to campus and just learning about what that role entails. So head over to the website if you're thinking about Fuqua or if you're just interested in brand management in general. Other than that, before we get into this week's candidates, I wanted to mention that, and I don't know when this is going to come out, but a couple of days ago I recorded a special episode of the podcast with a professor at Georgetown, McDonough, who runs their kind of leadership training stuff. So it was her and actually not a current student, a recent grad of the program. And I didn't know about this, but they have this crazy kind of leadership challenge that they run at Georgetown. It's like this whole day kind of simulation around where they get alumni to come back and pretend to be executives from different companies. And you're kind of thrown into these sort of business decisions in real. So anyway, the show is about that and about how they thought training leaders, you can't just read cases or learn about it in class. You got to get out there and kind of be put into these kind of simulations. So I had a lot of fun recording that. I think it's going to air in the next week or so, but stay nice.
• 12:34
  Speaker B: Very, very good.
• 12:36
  Speaker A: Yeah, so as always, people can write to us, Alex. If they write to info@clearadmit.com use the subject line wiretaps. And, yeah, let's get into the candidates, though. I mean, unless you have anything else.
• 12:47
  Speaker B: No. Very good. Let's kick on.
• 12:49
  Speaker A: All right, so this is wiretaps candidate number one. Our first candidate this week has nine schools on the target list, and those schools are Columbia, Duke, Harvard, LBS, MIT, Kellogg, Chicago, Booth, Wharton, and Darden. They want to start school in the fall of 2025. So they're an early bird. Their pre MBA career includes working in education. They've got a legal background and a military background, which we'll explain more in detail as we go here. They want to get into consulting after business school, and they're looking at the big three, Bain, BCG, and McKinsey. This person's GMAT score is a 740. They have a 3.5 undergraduate GPA. They do have ten years of work experience. They're currently located in Europe. And just to give you some background on the work experience, they did like two years of teaching high school math with Teach for America. Then they went off and attended a top ten law school where they earned a law degree. And then they decided that they always were interested in business, but they decided they would wait on the MBA, and they went and worked for a few years as a big law associate before then taking a different direction and heading off to do five years as an active duty army jag. Currently managing a team of 18 attorneys specializing in sexual assault cases. And they mentioned that's pretty high visibility work because of the congressional interest in this stuff. I should mention, JAG stands for judge advocate general, which you may have already known, Alex, but it's basically being a lawyer in the military. It was also a tv series many moons ago, but in any event, so this person, they want to go off to business school, but they've been out there, right? Ten years. They went to law school. They worked in a law firm, now in the military. So I don't know what you make of this, Alex. It's kind of an interesting profile, but certainly not traditional.
• 14:46
  Speaker B: Yeah, not traditional. And yeah, I do know what JAG is because I googled it before we came on air, but I did remember it. There you go, a tv show and stuff.
• 14:56
  Speaker A: It was, yeah, I looked it up. It got 6.7 on IMDB, so probably not a bad show, but I will say I never watched it. But what do you make of this candidate anyway?
• 15:05
  Speaker B: This candidate, I think, is really interesting. I mean, super, super numbers, 743, five GPA and so forth. Don't teach for America, been to a top ten law school, and sort of has waited to do an MBA until they really figure that that's what they want to do. They've done three years as a big law associate. Yeah, you've described it all. So I think there's a lot, a lot to like here. There's a couple of things I really want them to focus on and think long and hard about. One is they're going to be an older candidate, so they're going to really need to hone in on the fit, why now is the right time, and how they're going to really thrive in the MBA program at this juncture. And part of that will also be really understanding each of the schools that they're targeting, how that's going to work for them, and so forth. So really focus on that. And then secondly, I'd like to see them focus a bit more on their longer term goal. So in the short term. Yep, makes perfect sense. Go do some consulting as you then get to apply a lot of the knowledge that you pick up in the top MBA program. But I'd like to see something a little bit more than simply preparing themselves for a leadership role down the road. So whether there's a particular industry that they're particularly interested in, or whatever it might be, they've got plenty of time. They're targeting next season. Really think long and hard about what that long term goal should look like, because top MBA programs really want people that are passionate and ambitious that are really going to make a difference in the long run. And I have no doubt this is the type of candidate that will and can do that. But yeah, just like see a bit more about what that long term goal looks like. Graham?
• 17:10
  Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. In fact, I think this person asked us, if I remember correctly, should they retake the GMAT to even boost the score further. But 740 is fantastic, and I do not think that's where they should spend their time. I should mention they have okay activities. I mean, obviously they've been kind of in the military the last five years, so that's been curtailed a bit. They're overseas, but they do mention that they do running, they love travel, reading. They mentor new lieutenants and former students from their teaching days. So I think they're an active individual. And they also mentioned they were very active in law school. So I think they can bring that to bear in the application process and convince the admissions team that they'll be fully on board. I mean, I will say one of the things that I worried about, aside from the need, as you pointed out, for clarity on the goals with the long term stuff, is just convincing the admissions team that they're not like a degree collector, again, just showing how they're going to get involved. What they're going to do as a student should go a long way. But I could not agree more. A lot to like, as you often say here, such an interesting background from teach for America through to the military legal role. So, yeah, there's a lot of positives here, and I think they're going to find success. Just follow our advice with respect to coming up with a more specific long term goal and demonstrate your fit and interest in taking part in the.
• 18:26
  Speaker B: Just, just. You did raise another good point, Graham. In terms of they talked about retaking the GMAT. Yeah. I mean, I don't think that's time well spent in their case, but they talked about if they do that, they're going to have to take the new GMAT, which is scored on a different scale.
• 18:44
  Speaker A: Right.
• 18:45
  Speaker B: So let's talk about that. What are the implications of someone that's got a GMAT score from the traditional scale and then retook it and got a GMAT score, which in its raw numbers will be lower.
• 19:00
  Speaker A: Lower. Right.
• 19:02
  Speaker B: So how are schools going to handle that?
• 19:05
  Speaker A: I mean, the schools know they've actually been given some equivalency charts and things from GMAC so they can understand how to interpret because they recognize, GMAC knows that for the next couple of years, they're likely to see both types of scores out there in the wild. So it's fine. But again, in this instance, they don't need to retake. But I hear what you're saying. If someone, let's say you have a 710 and you're thinking, I got to go back and get a better score to be competitive at a top school, and lo and behold, you land at 680 or something. The schools will know that. I don't know what that equates to, but I think it's much higher. Right. So the schools have literally, I saw it somewhere. There's like a chart that they can.
• 19:47
  Speaker B: Use to help understand, and they'll end up having to report both averages over the next two or three years, because even in two or three years time, some folks will be using the traditional score because it lasts for five years. So they'll report both. They'll have to report both. And the rankings agencies will have to compute both.
• 20:07
  Speaker A: Yeah. That'll be interesting to see how that evolves. In an event. So best of luck to that. Canada. I should mention they left us a really nice remark somewhere.
• 20:16
  Speaker B: Yeah, they love the pod.
• 20:18
  Speaker A: Yeah. Been listening for years. They're that time back.
• 20:23
  Speaker B: Yeah. Maybe this time I won't post the link in their comments to see if they actually do genuinely listen.
• 20:30
  Speaker A: So in any event, I want to just thank them for their service, but also for tuning in all the time, it sounds like. So that's great. Let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two. So our second candidate is applying to start this coming fall and has six schools on the target list. Those schools are Tuck, Harvard, Michigan, Ross, Chicago, Booth, Wharton and Yale pre MBA. This person's been working in the classical music industry. I don't think I've ever seen that before. So, very interesting. They want to get into consulting after business school. GRE score is a 326 and their GPA is a 3.69. They've got three years of work experience. And they did add a little bit of color by mentioning that they're looking to pivot to management consulting after three years of working in operational and strategic roles at top classical music companies and experiencing the limitations of an industry that is constantly in panic mode due to poor funding and short sighted management. And so one other thing this candidate mentions that they want to return to the arts in the longer term, bringing kind of consulting honed management skills with them. Right. So the other thing I should mention before we get into the discussion here is that this person was PBK at an iv undergrad, and PBK stands for Phi Beta Kappa. So very good student at an Ivy League school, very diverse. Coursework, math minor, ancient languages, study music. They also took a lot of graduate level courses while they were an undergrad. And then from a personal standpoint, this person is multiracial. They mentioned black, white and hispanic female. Lots of college activities, performing arts, literary societies, archaeological digs, debate, et cetera. So lots going on. Alex, what do you make of this person? I should mention that their quantitative result on the GRE, which they pointed out they're not super happy with, was a 156, and that equates to like a 57th percentile. So, yeah. What do you make of this candidacy? Because otherwise, pretty amazing. But there is maybe this little bit of a concern on the GRE math section.
• 22:39
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, they bring a lot of diversity to the program, not least of which industry diversity. And that kind of stuff really adds, I think, to their overall profile. And we don't see too many folks going to a top MBA program from the classical music industry or whatever, however. Well, from the performing arts more generally, I suppose. So that will play really well for this candidate. There's lots of other stuff to like about them too, no doubt. And their GPA is really super strong. Their overall gre score is very good too. It's just this imbalance of the 156 quant score that will stand out given that everything else looks really strong. So I would just encourage them to. And I think they might actually be applying this season. So maybe they've already applied. But even so, to look at doing business fundamentals or something of its equivalent, just to show that they're academically ready to thrive in the curriculum. Now they've got some quant, they minored in math. At the end of the day, I think they're going to be fine. But if they do this additional step, I think it will play really well in admissions. And again, I really like their long term vision to return to arts, come back to the arts of bringing their consulting home management skills and hopefully MBA developed and consulting home management skills. I think that's really good. And that gets back to the point with our first candidate. This candidate has a real interesting long term goal where they can really make that impact based on their experiences to date and so on and so forth. So that will play really well in. Yeah, Graham, there's a lot to like here.
• 24:43
  Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. And I think even if they've already applied, doing business fundamentals and providing schools with the score, it might just help prevent them from landing on a list. Or if they do land on a waitlist, it'd be good to have in their arsenal of stuff they could pull out to show that they're really dedicated. But otherwise, what an interesting candidacy. And I do agree with you on the long term goal. It's a nice connection to past experience and it is exactly what we was kind of missing in the first candidacy. So, yeah, I think there's, as you said, a lot to, like here. I guess one of the things that was challenging for me is you see this kind of lower quant score and then you see the math minor and it's sort of like the two don't add up. So that was what was concerning. Like, if this person had been purely humanities, you'd say, okay, they're a little weak in this domain, but the math minor makes you think that they should get a good math score. So that's why this is kind of being flagged, at least by me.
• 25:36
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, I completely agree. And I imagine their prep for the GRe, probably. Maybe they underestimated the importance of that.
• 25:47
  Speaker A: Definitely. So, in any event, I want to thank that person for their post on the site. And, yeah, they're going to bring a lot to any program they attend. They set their sites pretty high, but I think it's reasonable given the numbers and the background. So we'll see how it turns out.
• 26:01
  Speaker B: Just a quick question, though, Graham. What about retaking that gre?
• 26:07
  Speaker A: The main thing that would happen, I think, is if they were to get, let's say, a 330 with a much better math score, is that not only would it increase their ods of getting into some of these schools or help them if they were waitlisted, but it might also move the meter on scholarship dollars that they could see coming their way. So that's something to think about. But we're kind of far along. If they applied in round two, they're running out of time to change it.
• 26:31
  Speaker B: Yeah, but they've got a perfect score on their verb. I think you're right. So if they can really hone up on that quant, they're going to get a really crazy good score.
• 26:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's true. So, all food for thought. I want to thank them for sharing their profile. Let's move on and talk about our last candidate. So this is wiretaps candidate number three. So, as we've been doing the last few weeks, Alex, you picked a decision wire candidate, a post, and it's about a candidate who is undecided about where to attend. They've been accepted to a couple of schools. They indicate they applied to NYU and to UNC, Keenan Flagler. And they're again starting this fall. And they were admitted to Stern and UNC. The main difference is that UNC is offering them $110,000 scholarship and Stern isn't offering them any money. They want to work in technology. After business school. They mentioned Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and maybe Tesla as well. This candidate has a 3.66 gpa. That was the only counting stat they shared. I don't know if they waived the GMAT or just didn't want to share it, but that's all we have. They're located in Lima, Peru, and they mentioned that. They say, I have an accounting and finance background working in Peru. I plan to work at a tech company like Google or Microsoft or Apple or similar, maybe following a finance path or switch, but within the tech industry. So they said the factors they're considering in trying to make this decision are scholarship received. So again, 110,000 from UNC. Zero from NYU. Career impact of both schools in technology. Number three, whether or not they can find a lender, because they only have $20,000 in personal funds that they can put towards the degree. And then four, they have a wife and a daughter. So those are the kind of factors they're mulling over. And they were looking for some advice on this. So, Alex, I'm going to turn this over to you. What do you think this person should do?
• 28:36
  Speaker B: I mean, we're featuring this person because obviously they got into Stern, our unofficial sponsor of this show. This is a classic sort of dilemma, right? You've got a good scholarship from a school that's in a tier below another school. So on a relative scale, it's 110,000 versus no scholarship. That's challenging. And their personal circumstance, as an international student who has limited resources and also is bringing family and so on and so forth. So therefore, additional costs, additional considerations, really makes this a challenging decision. I think, either way, if they really wanted that career to be in New York City post MBA, then obviously that would tilt the balance in favor of Stern because they could do in semester type stuff and network more aggressively and so on and so forth. But maybe in this case, I would challenge them to really look at Keenan Flagler's placement in tech and really focus on how realistic their opportunities would be coming out of Keenan Flagler. I mean, are they planning to go back to Peru in the short term or stay in the US for a little while, go back to Peru and really sort of iron out that decision making? The other thing that I would think about, Graham, is the current environment in tech is pretty brutal. So what is their backup? Right. So if tech becomes less realistic over the next year or so, are they looking at maybe doing some investment banking or something different to then pivot into tech at a later date? So I might even explore what my backup options are here and whether, again, Keenan Flagler could get them there or the value. Stern really is a stepwise up based off of what they're looking at. Those tiers that we often talk about are there for a reason. Right. Stern should make all this more accessible, but there's a big cost here, and for this particular candidate, funds are going to be really important.
• 31:06
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of issues here. And I think one of the things that I was sort of mulling over is the fact that I believe both UNC and Stern are schools that ask you when you're applying for kind of a backup plan. We always point this out because in their career kind of goals. They often say, I think it's these two schools that will ask you like, okay, what happens if you can't do your main target? What's your next plan? So hopefully this candidates thought about that. But I do agree this might be, I mean, we've seen it. Most schools are down with tech placements and so it's been a bit of a struggle and we see continued kind of layoffs in the sector. So it would be good for them to have know, I don't know if it's investment banking, but maybe they could do finance or a leadership development program for a financial company like American Express. I mean, there are lots of jobs out there in that domain, but something to consider. I do think that you're mean. Do the research on Kenan Flagler. I wonder what they think also about what kind of experience do they want to have for their wife and know is it they're looking for, maybe the wife's going to work or, you know, they might need to think about where they want to be because obviously New York City and Chapel Hill are pretty different places on a number of levels. Right? So that's something to. Yeah, the finding a lender is going to be really important. So they need to figure that did, I couldn't help but wonder if they'd applied to other schools. I mean, they mentioned they applied to these two and got into these two, but I sort of wondered if there were others because it seems like kind of a narrow list. And I was thinking about, oh, shouldn't they have applied to University of Washington Foster if they really want to work in tech and kind of land right in the heart of all that? Or there are a number of schools that could help, too. And so I was sort of puzzling over that. Anyway, it's something just to think about here. And then the other thing you and I talked about before we came on air is I wonder why they didn't apply to the tech MBA at Stern, which is a one year program, so therefore maybe a little less expensive. But perhaps because they have such a finance and accounting background, they didn't think that that was the right fit for them. I don't know if that was a factor, if they thought about that. But in any event, yeah, this is a challenge. And I think you could argue that Stern has not only the prestige ranking and stuff, but also a pretty good footprint with tech because of that tech MBA offering that they have. But again, $110,000 is nothing to scoff at. So something to consider. Hopefully, we've given them some good food for thought, if not an outright decision here. But I don't envy them because it is a challenge with moving with family and all these other factors they've got to consider.
• 33:43
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's a challenge, but it brings across the point that basically, for one person, Stern might be the best option, but for a different person with different issues related, then Keenan Flaglam might be the best option. So, keeping that in mind, it's not that it's always one school over the other.
• 34:09
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's a really good point. And that's why we have these discussions, because it really does depend on the candidate and their kind of personal situation in many cases or their goals. I mean, there's so many factors, but in any event, I appreciate you picking this out. Next week. We won't have one that has Stern in it. We'll see. But in any event, and actually, we have a new sponsor, and I don't know when that sponsorship is starting, but we have a new sponsor for the show. We're just ironing out some of the details, so that probably will start next week. We'll see. I'll keep you posted.
• 34:38
  Speaker B: Very good.
• 34:38
  Speaker A: All right, so let's record another one next week if you're willing, and, yeah, I'll see you then, Alex.
• 34:43
  Speaker B: Very good. Stay safe, everyone. Take care.