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MBA Wire Taps 404—Reapplication strategy? Aiming high enough? Foster vs Owen · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:16
  Speaker A: Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm Graham Richmond and this is your Wiretaps for Monday, January 6, 2025. Are you looking for an MBA program where you'll be more than just a number? Vanderbilt business offers a personalized learning experience to help each student reach their unique career goals. Whether you're looking to switch careers entirely or accelerate the path you're on, the Vanderbilt MBA program will provide you with the individual support you need to propel your career forward. Vanderbilt is currently waiving their $200 application fee for MBA Wiretaps listeners. To learn more about the Vanderbilt MBA program and to claim your application fee waiver, visit business.vanderbilt.edu clearadmit. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, happy New Year to you and all of our listeners.
• 1:05
  Speaker B: Happy New Year. Very, very good.
• 1:07
  Speaker A: Do you have any New Year's resolutions or you're not a New Year's resolutions person?
• 1:11
  Speaker B: Okay, let's cut to the chase, Graham. It's New Year's Eve as we're recording, so I haven't committed yet to my resolution, but there will be one.
• 1:20
  Speaker A: All right.
• 1:20
  Speaker B: Yep.
• 1:21
  Speaker A: Okay, cool. All right, well, you can tell us next week, so. Yeah, I mean, same here. I haven't thought through that. So maybe when we come back next week we'll have some ideas there. We do. Speaking of the new year, though, we have in February a whole slate of events, so haven't had events for a little while here because the holidays, et cetera, but we have a whole bunch of online events that we're going to be doing for deferred enrollment and for master's in management programs with a lot of top MBA programs joining us. So if you're a younger candidate, probably still in college or currently in grad school, you can attend these events. So I'll get you guys links next week. But I just wanted to mention that and the other thing, Alex, I haven't told anyone this, but I wanted to mention this as we kind of start off the new year, that something very special is brewing in May of 2025. For clear admit, we're trying to do an in person event and all I can say is it will be in Boston and there will be many, many top schools there and that'll be for full time MBA programs.
• 2:21
  Speaker B: You did that last year in Chicago, right?
• 2:23
  Speaker A: That's right. So we're going to do it again.
• 2:25
  Speaker B: Hopefully we can repeat and improve. Well, I think it was great event, so.
• 2:30
  Speaker A: Yeah, it was amazing.
• 2:31
  Speaker B: But you're skipping what's going on Graham.
• 2:35
  Speaker A: What do you mean, what's going on? Just generally, like on the wire.
• 2:39
  Speaker B: What's going on? Application season round two.
• 2:42
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 2:43
  Speaker B: Is hot and heavy with application deadlines and 28 of them at this week. In terms of the schools that we cover, do you want me to roll them out?
• 2:52
  Speaker A: 28 schools in one week. Wow. Yes. Maybe just tell us who's not. Who doesn't have a deadline.
• 2:59
  Speaker B: I'm going to tell you who is because I've written it all down in my preparation for this show.
• 3:04
  Speaker A: Yeah. All right, what is it?
• 3:06
  Speaker B: Harvard, Tock, ross, Anderson, Goizata, McDonough, Tepper, Jones, Booth, Yale, Darden, Keenan, Flagler, Foster, Mendoza, Cox, Stamford, Kellogg, Johns Hopkins, Carey, Owen, Our sponsor, Hass, Fuqua, Johnson, Marshall, Iassi, Terry and Shella all have round two deadlines.
• 3:27
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 3:28
  Speaker B: Judge has around three. And Saeed has a stage four application deadline this upcoming week. Graham.
• 3:35
  Speaker A: Wow. So if I'm panicked this week and I don't get anything in, everything in as an applicant, is there any. Are there schools with deadlines next week? Like, are there. I assume MIT is sitting out there a little bit later, as they do every year.
• 3:49
  Speaker B: Right. They're smart. They always step away a week from the. From all the hype. So, yeah, be slow. And there'll be about 10 other programs that we cover coming in next week.
• 3:59
  Speaker A: Okay. Well, I do want to, you know, everyone tuning in, obviously. Why are you listening? You should be working on your applications. No, but if you're. If you're playing around, too, good luck. I know sometimes listening to the show is a nice kind of break from writing essays and stuff, so. Speaking of essays, though, Alex, we ran two tips on the website that I hope everyone's read. The first is about word and character limits for essays. And it just goes over, like, what is acceptable? You know, school gives you a kind of recommended word limit. Like, how do you deal with that? And then the other one that we did is we did a post that's called 5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Submitting an Optional Essay. So also very important. So read those if you're in the throes of working on essays. Definitely.
• 4:40
  Speaker B: Very good. Very good.
• 4:41
  Speaker A: And the other thing we did, Alex, is we've been running these Real Humans pieces where we catch up with students at top schools who we already had spoken with as part of our regular Kind of Real Humans series. But this is a holiday edition where we ask students about, you know, what kind of holiday traditions are there at your school as the semester's winding down and what are people Doing over the break? Have they started looking for summer internships and all kinds of good advice. But the best part of this series is that we play a game with the candidates called this or that. And I wondered if you would indulge me. They're just five questions, and they're really simple, and I wanted to ask them to. This is silly stuff about the holidays. So I wanted to get your take, and you are not prepared for this. So it's called this or that. So I'm gonna just give you two things, and you just tell me what you prefer. Okay, so ugly Christmas sweaters or Christmas pajamas?
• 5:32
  Speaker B: Ugly Christmas sweaters out of durass.
• 5:35
  Speaker A: Okay. All right, how about this? Getting gifts or giving gifts.
• 5:40
  Speaker B: That's a good one. I like to. Yeah. Get gifts.
• 5:44
  Speaker A: All right. I'm so glad you said that. Just because everyone who answered this has been like giving gifts. Of course, you know, that's the sort of politically correct thing to say, but people like getting gifts, and I think it's fun. All right, how about this? Real tree or artificial tree?
• 5:58
  Speaker B: In terms of your real tree, we've got two. One in the garden for the village, one in the house.
• 6:03
  Speaker A: All right, Nice. Hot chocolate or eggnog?
• 6:07
  Speaker B: Well, if I could put some alcohol in the hot chocolate, I'll go with a hot chocolate.
• 6:12
  Speaker A: All right. Maybe some Baileys or something. I don't know what you put into.
• 6:14
  Speaker B: A hot chocolate, but I'd find something.
• 6:17
  Speaker A: All right, last one. Holiday party or a cozy night in?
• 6:21
  Speaker B: Party.
• 6:23
  Speaker A: All right, that sounds good. Well, thanks for indulging me in that. I just. I had a lot of fun reading what students, you know, at these schools were saying about this stuff.
• 6:29
  Speaker B: You're not going to reveal your answers?
• 6:31
  Speaker A: My answers, yes.
• 6:33
  Speaker B: All right.
• 6:34
  Speaker A: I would go with. I think I would go with Christmas pajamas instead of ugly sweaters. I would go with getting gifts a real tree eggnog. Because we talked about that last week. I kind of like eggnog and then a holiday party as well. So, yeah, we're kind of lined up on most. The other thing I wanted to talk about, and I know you picked out three candidates that are going to be really interesting this week. The first thing we have to do, though, is. I want to share. We have career stats from a few more of the M7 schools. So we actually. Wharton, Kellogg, and Columbia all dropped their career reports again, right in the middle of the sort of holiday season. But. So I'll give you the numbers. We'll start with Wharton. Okay. And then we'll go through these. So Wharton had 916 students in the graduating class last spring. 69% of them were looking for work. Of that 31% that were not looking, there were 117 students that were sponsored. There were about 55 students that were either self employed or starting their own company. And that leaves 29 students that they didn't say what they're up to, but I guess some of them might be continuing with education. Hard to know. Also, just as a point of reference, last year, 75% of the student body were looking for work. So that number's come down to 69% this year. Now, of those looking, 93% of grads had an offer within three months of graduation. That number's down slightly, although last year it was a near perfect 97.2%. 88% of this class of 23 or, sorry, class of 24 graduates had accepted an offer within three months. And last year that number was 92%. The median salary for all these folks is $175,000. That's unchanged from last year. And then as to the industries regions, we'll start with industries. We've got financial services leading the way at 36.6%. That's actually down just a tiny bit from 37.3%. Consulting, 25.2%. That's down from nearly 29% last year. 14% headed to tech. That's down from 17% and change last year. 5% headed into healthcare. That was 6.5% last year. And this year a new category took the fifth spot, and that's media, entertainment and sports. And 3% of students placed in that. And I don't have the number from last year because that was not one of the top fields last year. So that's kind of emerging for Wharton. In terms of the regions, they sent 46.8% of grads into the Northeast. That's pretty similar to last year. 21.5% out to the West Coast. That's up a tick from last year. It was like 20% last year. 12% the Mid Atlantic, that's up from 8.7%. 5% to the southwest, 4.7% to the south. Those are pretty much the same as last year. Very similar. And then 6% of Wharton grads went and worked overseas. That's down slightly from 9% last year. What do you think of these Wharton numbers?
• 9:41
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, obviously they're very good on aggregate relative to last year. It's quite interesting that the top three feeder industries for MBAs, financial services, consulting and tech. Were all down relative to last year, which does make me wonder where on balance, where are these folks getting hired in terms of what industries? I'm not sure that the rest of the detail that you provided really revealed that. Right. So that's quite interesting. Maybe it's more leadership development programs directly into industry, et cetera, et cetera. But yeah, I thought that was quite interesting. 175,000. That's on par with Harvard. So yeah, fairly decent. Although like I say, we're seeing Some other non M7 hit that marker too. But I think with Harvard and Wharton both, they're huge classes, so that might sort of bring down that sort of median a little bit over large numbers. But yeah, overall really good. Yeah, I mean, obviously the number that are seeking jobs like you say is down a little bit. And we know consulting has taken a hit this, this season relative, you know, as we've reported on other programs so far. So. So yeah, I think they're holding. They're holding up relatively well.
• 11:09
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean that number is a little curious to me. This is the fact that increasingly less students are looking for, quote, looking for work because they're heading somewhere else, sponsored or entrepreneurial. But I wonder to what it is.
• 11:20
  Speaker B: Do you think these programs are favoring now more sponsored students as a crutch?
• 11:27
  Speaker A: Well, I also wonder to what extent people who had an offer to be sponsored are more likely to take that offer nowadays than they might have been in a booming kind of hiring market. So, you know, because it used to be, I mean, I went to school with many students who were, were sponsored who ended up pivoting to a totally different job and just forego, you know, forewent the sponsorship and often the new hiring company would actually pay, you know, so that as a way to get them, to lure them away. So I think less of that's probably happening, which maybe is part of it. And yeah, maybe the schools are pivoting to take more sponsored students. That's this nice safe bet. That's your earlier question. I think more people are going into fields like. And maybe not so much at Wharton, but healthcare. I see a lot on these reports. I see a lot of CPG jobs and industry jobs. And I just think by nature when consulting and tech and finance go a little bit quiet, they cast. You just have to cast a wider net and so it becomes lots of little percentages to different fields.
• 12:26
  Speaker B: Well, what's interesting though about Wharton is it's the first school, I believe, that we've reported where financial services has dropped a little Bit. Whereas we've seen the drop on the consulting side and the corresponding increase on the financial services side. So I just thought that was quite interesting.
• 12:44
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think some of that's because it's a high. It's off of a high base. Right. So pretty. I mean, that's the number one field. So. But yeah, anyway, let's move on because we have two other schools. We have Kellogg, which I'll share now. And this is really interesting. Kellogg did not share the percentage of students looking. Now, last year they did share that, but for some reason this year they didn't share what percent were looking. So the numbers we get of those looking, 90% of grads had an offer three months out. Last year that number was 90. And then 87% had accepted an offer this year. And I don't have that stat from last year, but I assume it's not so different. Median salary, 170. Last year it was 175. So down a tiny bit. The average bonus that kellogg shared was $30,000 for those grads getting a bonus from their employer. In terms of the industries, 35% went into consulting. That's down from 42%. 20% went into technology. That's up from 17%. 19% went into finance, that's down from 22%. Healthcare, 9%, that's up from 3%. And consumer packaged goods, 7% unchanged. Kellogg placed 36% of their grads in the Midwest. That's up from 32. They placed 27% on the West Coast. That's up from 23%. And they placed 21% on the East coast, which down from 28% in the south, they sent 9%. And 6% of grads went international. So what do you make of these Kellogg numbers?
• 14:22
  Speaker B: Yeah, they bucked a couple of trends there, I think, if I recall correctly, in terms of tech is up a little bit, consulting down. And we've seen that across the board for all these top programs we've reported on. And a big boost in health care from 3 to 9. And we know that Kellogg, like Wharton, well, Wharton is probably the leader in this in that area. But Kellogg is very strong in health care. So seeing that boost in healthcare is quite interesting. But, yeah, again, overall these stats are reasonably resilient given as we seeing a clearer picture of challenging environment for these grads at this point.
• 15:11
  Speaker A: Yeah, agreed. So the only other thing I'll point out is it's always interesting to see the balance with a place like Kellogg where they're sending like a third to the Midwest, almost a third to the west and more like a fifth to the east now. But they have good sort of reach across the US and they kind of have to. Right. I mean, that's sort of based on their location.
• 15:33
  Speaker B: It's like Ross is very good at that. Tepe is very good at that. And there's a reason for.
• 15:40
  Speaker A: Last but not least, Columbia reported their data, and this won't take long because they share a lot less information than some of their peers. So 844 students in the graduating class of 24, but they don't share what percent were looking for work last year. They did share that figure, and they also shared, you know, what the people who weren't, you know, looking were doing, et cetera. But they. I don't have that information this year. But of those students who were looking, 89% had an offer within three months of graduation. That number is actually up from 84% last year. And 86.4% had accepted an offer, and that's also up from 81% now. The median salary is $175,000. That's exactly the same as last year and exactly the same as many of the schools we've been reporting on this year. And the bonus is $30,000 on average. Again, that's a number we see over and over again. In terms of the industries, they sent 35.9% of their grads. Services. That number is virtually unchanged. They sent 30% into consulting. That number's down from 36%. 10% into technology. That's down slightly. It was almost 11% last year, 3.8% into healthcare, and 3.1% into media, entertainment, and sports. And I don't have comparables on those because they were not in the top five industries last year, either of them. 79% of Columbia grads are working in the United States, but they do not break down where in the U.S. but that does mean that 21% of Columbia grads are headed overseas, which I think is the biggest number that we've seen from any top school. And they did provide a breakdown for that. They said 9% went to Asia, 5% to Europe, 4% to South America, and 3% to Africa and the Middle East. So what do you make of these Columbia numbers?
• 17:37
  Speaker B: Yeah, I wonder what percent of those that went abroad would. Well, were going home.
• 17:43
  Speaker A: Yeah, I kind of wonder that, too.
• 17:44
  Speaker B: Rather than going to a different geography, which would be interesting to break out that data. Presumably they have it. But yeah, I mean, these numbers, very similar to Wharton's numbers Or at least the numbers that they revealed are quite similar in terms of what you noted with Wharton Financial Services is obviously very strong for Columbia being in the heart. You know, in New York City, we know that consulting took a hit as every other program that we've covered. So yeah, I mean, again, these are good numbers for what they revealed.
• 18:25
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's the only thing that is a little tricky here is I would love to know, like, what percentage we're looking because I think it's easy to if, you know, like we were saying before we came on air, if a school is dealing with students who aren't responding to the surveys that they use to create these reports, you know, at what point do you just say, oh, this person's not looking for work because they're not responding or, you know, versus, you know, they are looking, but they're just frustrated. Right. So. So I don't know. I mean, obviously these are really good numbers. That overseas number, though, you're so right. I mean, very good to know, like what percentage of those, even more importantly, what percentage of those going overseas to work wanted to go overseas to work. That would be the real question. Right. So anyway, more of these to come, I think we had Duke and Georgetown on deck. We might talk about them next week. But without further ado, we should get into this week's candidates. What do you say?
• 19:14
  Speaker B: Let's kick on.
• 19:15
  Speaker A: All right, so this is wiretaps candidate number one. So our first candidate this week is applying to just two schools, and those schools are Duke and Darden. They're looking to start in the fall of 25. And this candidate has a rather interesting past in that they are a re applicant, but not at these two schools. So they, they applied last year to business school and to a handful of programs, but did not get in. And so here they are again this year. And they're trying some different schools is basically the story. This candidate is a chartered accountant in India. They did both undergrad and grad school in Commerce where they had an A and an A plus grade point average. They've been doing some fund controlling and private equity at Goldman and also some work at JP Morgan in terms of their career to date. And they want to get into asset management or hedge funds. After business school, they'd love to work at a place like BlackRock or Goldman or JP Morgan Asset Management. Their GRE score is a 320. As I said, they had a really good GPA in undergrad of almost a perfect GPA. They've been working for about five and a half years. They are located in India and they would like to land in the US or the UK after business school. They also shared that they got a waiver, a test waiver from Darden and that they're applying to fuqua with that 320 on the green. So they want to transition from accounting, this sort of accounting based role, to more of a front end asset management role. So that's the purpose of going to business school. Alex, what do you make of this situation?
• 20:57
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I'm a little bit bemused by their sort of application strategy because, you know, here's someone that's probably, you know, got good academic profile, done very well and has probably worked, you know, got a good career. Although it does appear to be more sort of back end than front end, front end in terms of accounting and so forth, but certainly working for top tier firms and probably done well. But there's a couple of sort of, you know, strategic choices that they appear to have made that I think is harming their opportunities in the MBA admissions process. So, you know, they applied last season. So as someone that's reapplying, even though they're not reapplying to these particular schools, but coming into the application process for the second, second year, they really should have targeted round one, right, to provide themselves most access. And on top of that they're sort of coming from an overrepresented sort of applicant pool, which again suggests they really should have targeted Round one. So I think that if they had applied to Darden and Duke in round one this season, they would have been been relatively more successful in their applications than targeting the same schools in round two this season. Now I'm not saying that they would have won, I got admitted, but their opportunities for admissions would have been stronger. I'm not thrilled by the GRE score. I think someone that's clearly quite smart, done well academically and so forth, really needs to represent that in their GRE with a mid-320s, 330 type score to confirm that aspect of their profile. And then so by taking the waiver, as they've done in the case of Darden, I just don't think that's going to do them a lot of favours being overrepresented in round two with a GRE waiver, that's probably going to be quite challenging. So overall that basically if this doesn't work out, I'm coming in back next season. So if that is the case, come back for sure in round one, come back with a strong GRE and not a GRE waiver.
• 23:24
  Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. So there's one other thing I would add and so I could not agree more. I mean, I do not understand a 320 GRE from someone who has basically perfect undergrad and grad degrees in what sounds like business and accounting, et cetera. So they should be a whiz on this topic type of test and be getting a 330, not a 320 and that would change their ability to get in. But the other thing I wanted to add is I don't understand the school selection process. Right. So applying to Darden and Duke, both excellent programs. Right. But this person says they want to move from back office kind of accounting, work at a top financial services company over to the front side on asset management. Again, maybe looking to work at some of the companies they've worked for already, Goldman and JP Morgan. But so why not target schools that are very well positioned to place people in finance. So whether that's Cornell or NYU or Chicago, Booth or Wharton, there are many, many schools that are good at this stuff and that place a high number of grads into the field. So I'm just puzzled overall by the strategy. Tepper is another one that comes up, or even unc. These are all schools that would be in their wheelhouse and could get them into the field they want. So yeah, I'm a little puzzled by the strategy overall, as you are. It sounds like.
• 24:39
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 24:40
  Speaker A: So I think our advice is, you know, obviously they're going to apply in round two here and I wish them well, but if not, spend the spring getting that 3:30 on the GRE and apply to these top schools in the first round next year.
• 24:52
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And best of luck. Hopefully this, this helps, but certainly explains why if they're not successful this season, why, why that happens.
• 25:03
  Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. All right, let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two. So our second candidate this week comes from another apply wire entry. It's a candidate that wants to start school in the fall of 25 and they're applying to Duke, Emory, Georgia Tech, UNC and Vanderbilt. So very much a kind of Southeast focus with their strategy. They've been working in the sports industry prior to business school and they're thinking about, about either going back to their family business because their family business is in the sports domain, or maybe doing some consulting. And if they do consulting in the short term, it would be. They mentioned Accenture and Deloitte as a couple of possible targets. They have a 655 on the GMAT. That's the newer version of the GMAT, given it ends in a 5. And if you're still not used to that scale, that's about a 7. 10 on the old scale. They have a 3.89 GPA, three years of work experience. They're located in the south, which explains their interest in maybe staying down there. They also mentioned to us that they were an NCAA Division 1 athlete while in college, which makes that GPA of 3.89 seem all the more impressive. They've done a variety of volunteer work in and out of their work industry and they also, I guess I've been doing a lot for women in sports and so I'm guessing this might be a female candidate. But Alex, what do you make of this candidacy? It's kind of interesting, both, you know, kind of school selection, but also just background in terms of sports.
• 26:39
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, like you say, getting a GPA of 3.89 whilst being a Division 1 athlete is, I think, is really, really good. Obviously we don't know what sport they were in, etc. But presumably that's really, really strong. They're working in a family business, which they qualify as demanding in their roles. So if they can show impact and growth at work over the last three years. I'm not sure we know a lot about what they do outside of work. I forget if that's revealed, but I think this is a really interesting candidate overall. And sure, if they want to be in the Southeast and that's their aspiration post mba, these schools that they're targeting are very good programs for feeding them back into that geography and so forth. And if they want to get that consulting gig first, first, I mean, these schools should be able to do that.
• 27:50
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 27:50
  Speaker B: But I do wonder if they should take a punt, Graham, and go for a couple of M7 or a bit of a leap. Because at the end of the day, yeah, maybe that doesn't make sense going back into the Southeast so much. But they might always wonder, should they? I think they could get across the board admits that these programs, assuming again, their family business work is demanding, they've shown impact and growth and so on and so forth and, you know, maybe they'll wonder, maybe they could have targeted Wharton, which has a good sports, you know, type of program, or Columbia or wherever on the east Coast.
• 28:32
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's an interesting question. I did want to mention they shared that they are the treasurer of a nonprofit. So that's about four hours a week commitment so they're doing some things outside of work. I mean, we don't know what undergrad they attend. But I still think Division 1 school, 3, 8, 9 GPA while playing Division 1 sport. It's very impressive, as you say. The other thing that occurred to me is they talk about maybe consulting in the short term. There's one school that you could argue is in the Southeast that isn't on the list here, and that's Darden. So that's another school which happens to be very strong when it comes to consulting placements. So just something to think about. About as well. But I hear you. I think this candidate, you think about that GMAT score. 655. Almost kind of like a 710 in the old days. And top grades, as you say. Interesting. Maybe work experience and sports background. Female candidate. They point out that they're Asian as well. And so they actually said that. They said, I am not confident that I'm a strong candidate for top schools. I've been told that my GMAT is low. And so that's why they're kind of have the brakes on the very top schools. But I agree with you.
• 29:42
  Speaker B: But my point is you might not be confident, but you'll never know unless you apply. Right. So I'm not saying apply only to top program, you know, the very top programs. I mean, keep this application strategy in play, but just add a Wharton and maybe a catalog or something, something like that and see what happens.
• 30:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, because you never know. I mean, this person could get into Wharton with like a half scholarship or something and then suddenly like, wow. And you know, Wharton has a good sports management set of electives and things. So in any event, yeah, we'll see where this goes. And a good family business center, as does Kellogg. Right. So anyway, a lot of factors in play, but I think our main message for this candidate is that they're probably a little stronger than they think and so they should just go for it.
• 30:30
  Speaker B: Yeah. Wish them the best of luck.
• 30:32
  Speaker A: Yeah, appreciate them sharing. Let's move on and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number three. So our final candidate for this week comes from a decision wire post that you've selected Alex. And this candidate, as usual, is undecided about where to go. They applied to Georgia Tech, ut, Austin, Washington, Foster and Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt, Owen. And they ended up getting accepted into two of these programs. They got into Foster with a $66,000 scholarship and they got into Vanderbilt with a hundred thousand dollar scholarship. This candidate had a GMAT score of 655, which just like our past candidate is about a 710. On the original exam, they had an 8.5 out of 10 undergraduate GPA, which tells me they are based in India and is a very high GPA as well. They're starting school next fall and they're thinking about transitioning into consulting or maybe technology. And they mention Accenture, Bain, BCG, Deloitte, McKinsey, but also some of those tech companies like Amazon and LinkedIn and Microsoft. So what's interesting though is that I had some dialogue with them because I was sort of like, whoa, it depends on what you want to do, right? So, because consulting, technology, I mean, you know, they're kind of different fields. And they said in the comments that they said, I would like to work in consulting, preferably for McKinsey, Bain or BCG. However, I understand that those are not target schools for MBB. So I also am up for tier 2. Consulting location is not a significant part of my decision making specifically based on consulting opportunities. What should I decide? So what do you think about this, Alex?
• 32:19
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think this is a really interesting decision to make. You know, Foster and Owen, I would qualify as sort of being in that top 20 tier. Top 20, top 25. That bracket just outside of the top 20, I should say. And some might argue that Foster's slightly ahead of Owen, but I don't know that when you get to those sorts of tiers that the waters are a bit more mudded, as it were. So which of these two programs would give them the best access to a consulting career? That's obviously the biggest sort of question to try to unpick and answer. But then the other side of it is Owen's offering more money. So I would also look at the overall cost in terms of risk because I do think again, consulting careers are going to be more challenging, possibly, I should say, over the next several years, simply because of this sort of all this transformation that's going to be going on with AI and so on and so forth. So it might simply be take the least risky option. And in that case it might be Owen, but it might also be that Foster provides a little bit more access. But I don't know that I would scrutinise the career reports. And when you scrutinize the career reports, it's also important to recognize that, you know, a school may, you know, send more graduates to a particular industry than another school, but that doesn't always mean that getting access to that industry, the school that sends more, is best. It might be just at that School, you know, another industry is particularly attractive. So my point is Foster obviously sends a lot of folks into tech because there's a lot of tech companies right on its back door. So, anyway, I think this is a very difficult decision, Graeme. I've rabbited on and I've come up with no solution.
• 34:30
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think what you're referring to is the fact that Foster, year in and year out, is the number one school for percentage of graduates going into tech job. They tend to lead the way amongst all the top schools. And so that's why, you know, whereas Vanderbilt tends to be a very high, you know, does very well with consulting placements. That's usually their number one kind of industry that they send people off into. So if this person really wants to do consulting, you could say, gee, you know, Owen's giving you more money. The cost of living, I think, is going to be much lower in Tennessee than it's going to be in Washington State, Seattle. Right. So I just. Yeah, so that does come to mind. Although I feel like what's so interesting to me though is that this candidate mentioned wanting to potentially work for Amazon, LinkedIn or Microsoft in their post, and then in the comment they said, well, I want to do consulting, so they must have some interest in tech potentially. And that's really important to figure out because those jobs at Amazon, LinkedIn and Microsoft are obviously abundant at Foster because they're right there in the backyard. So, yeah, it's a really tricky thing. And the last thing I would say is, is I think that the candidates should probably put a little more time into understanding the nuances of sort of US Geography, because I really do think that Vanderbilt grads tend to stay in the Southeast or maybe a little bit to the Northeast and stuff, and Washington Foster grads tend to stay on the West Coast. There's just going to be some of that happening if you were to draw a little scatter plot of where these alumni live in the long term, it's centered around their institutions. Right. So I think it's important to figure that out if you're a candidate. I mean, I don't know if this person is planning on staying in the US forever or maybe going back to India, but it would be good to sort of think through that.
• 36:15
  Speaker B: No, absolutely. And unless you've lived and traveled throughout America, you don't really recognize how different, culturally, different parts of America are. Absolutely. So, I mean, this is quite important.
• 36:28
  Speaker A: Important, yeah. So I know we haven't really given them a kind of solid answer, but I, you know, I would encourage them to obviously, continue to do due diligence. I did recommend in my comments to them that they should scour the career reports for the last few years, if possible, and, and talk to some students and and maybe even have a conversation with the career center at each institution. So I do want to wish them the best of luck, Obviously. It's great to got, you know, they have a couple couple admits a bunch of money being thrown at them. So that's all great news.
• 36:55
  Speaker B: Yeah. Congratulations. Very good.
• 36:58
  Speaker A: Well, Alex, once again, happy New Year to you and to all of our listeners. And I'm really looking forward to the year ahead. And we'll start that year ahead by catching up next week and doing this again.
• 37:08
  Speaker B: Brilliant. Happy New Year, everyone. Take care. Stay safe.