Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / Episode 503: Admissions Director Q&A with Tricia Baione of CBS

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Episode 503: Admissions Director Q&A with Tricia Baione of CBS · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:16
  Speaker A: Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm your host, Graham Richmond, and this special episode is part of our Admissions Director Q and A series. And today I'm excited to welcome Tricia Bayone. She's the Assistant Dean of Admissions at Columbia Business School in New York City. Tricia. Trisha brings more than 15 years of experience in higher education. She was appointed in September of 23 as the Assistant Dean of Admissions to provide strategic leadership, vision and coordination of a centralized recruitment program and admissions office for all of Columbia Business School's degree programs. And here's what I love too. She joined the school's Career management center in 2011. So prior to it being at admissions, Tricia was working in career management where she was the Executive Director of career education and advising. And to top it off, she earned her MBA in 2009 nine from Columbia Business School with a concentration in marketing and management. So as you might imagine, I'm so excited to welcome Tricia to the show. Trisha, thanks for making time.
• 1:13
  Speaker B: Thank you so much, Graham. I'm excited to be invited and to be here today.
• 1:16
  Speaker A: Yeah. So let's start just with a. I know I gave like a little bit of a background and I just love that you have. It's rare that we get to talk to someone who has this dual kind of background in both. I mean, not only do you have an MBA from the school that you work for, but you've also worked in careers. And I just feel like that's got to give you a lot of great perspective. But just tell me a little bit about the background, anything I didn't cover, or just maybe a little bit about how you. You ended up in this current role.
• 1:37
  Speaker B: Yeah, thank you for asking that question. Because my journey to my current role and indeed my journey to an MBA in the first place did take some twists and turns. So I graduated from a liberal arts school. I graduated from Colgate with a degree in polyscience and had wanted to be a journalist. I'd wanted to be a journalist from the age of 15 and I achieved just that. I spent almost nine years in consumer magazine editing at having a lot of consumer facing opportunities, but at the heart of it, I was an editor. I was a journalist. And I saw that the print media industry was changing and I got curious about the business side of media and I made the decision to get my MBA with that intention to switch to the business side of media. And when I got to Columbia in the fall of 07, I realized all of the opportunities to reach consumers that I wasn't even aware of. As a liberal arts degree in journalism, I realized that I could market products that I was using every day. I realized I could market services that I was using every day. I pivoted from just looking at media narrowly to looking at all consumer facing industries and spent my summer internship between first and second year at Target as a buyer. And as a buyer merchandising, you're like wait, Patricia, you wanted marketing and maybe brand management. How did merchandising come in? Well, if you think about what the day to day activities are of a buyer of being in merchandising, it's having P and L ownership, profit and loss ownership, it's achieving cross functional buy in, it's trying to reach a consumer. And I absolutely loved my experience at Target and I had a return offer. What I also knew though was that I was rooted in New York City. My husband is a native New Yorker and Minneapolis was not New York. Minneapolis is not Manhattan was the title of my managerial negotiations paper that I wrote my second year, no joke. And I ended up turning down my full time offer to Target because the cultural move was not right for me, the geographical move was not right for me. Unfortunately, however, I turned down my full time offer in the fall of 08 at the height of the financial crisis. Oh wow. When my classmates were having full time offers withdrawn from them and I took a huge risk, I knew that I have a safe, I had a safety net in the sense that I was a little bit further along in my career. I was married and so I knew I had a financial safety net and I could take this risk, but I did so knowing that I was probably going to graduate without a job, which is exactly what happened. I graduated not having a full time offer and I spent 2009 through 2010 interviewing with companies that were not hiring. I had multiple senior VPs say, I want you on my team. You sound like you work at my company. And yet they couldn't make me an offer because the economy was just shut down at that point and there was no hiring at that time. I also developed a passion for wine and ended up getting professional certification in wine. I was like, well, you know, maybe why am I not looking at jobs in the wine industry? And so I started to also look at jobs in the wine industry where I received my second full time offer at this now post graduation. And what I realized with that offer was that at the time, the wine industry was not recognizing the value of an MBA in terms of salary and they were offering a lot Less than I could really afford to take the job. And so I went back to CBS to meet with my career advisor, and he started asking me leading questions. Why did you get your mba? Well, I just told you all. Marketing and media. Why did you pivot to broadly consumer? I was passionate about storytelling, passionate about how to connect the dots from point A to point B, passionate about how to get somebody to buy a product. What did you love about your time at cbs? I loved being the marketing club president. I loved being a peer advisor. I loved being a career fellow where I provide second year career mentorship. I did all of these leadership things. And then he said, what do you do in your free time? I was like, well, I run the alumni admissions program for Colgate in New York City. He's like, have you thought about bringing this all together? And at that, I was like, no, I want to go be a marketer for the wine industry. But I started having a think and I started realizing that everything I was doing and had done was leading me to a career in higher education, but specifically a career in higher education at Columbia Business School.
• 6:12
  Speaker A: School.
• 6:13
  Speaker B: Because I am passionate about my school being an alum. And so that led me back to CBS as the role of a career advisor. And as you mentioned, it was 12 years in CMC. And then in 2023, when the dean approached me about potentially moving into admissions, I jumped at the opportunity to get to continue to shape the community that I love, the school that I love, but do so in a new and different and exciting way. And that's how I ended up in admission. So it was a bit of a roller coaster. It wasn't a straight line. But in hindsight, the dots all connect.
• 6:52
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I think, I mean, that's something that's so important about management education and career planning and everything is that I feel like sometimes the paths can be circuitous or not a straight line. But it all makes sense when you start to look back. And I think you kind of. You led me right into my next question, which was gonna be about what drew you to admissions work. But I thought there's a second part to it, though, that I do want you to answer, which is what keeps you excited about it today because now you've been, you know, a few years in this role, and what do you still like about working in admissions?
• 7:20
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's, you know, getting to meet prospective students at the very beginning of their journey and understanding what is their potential and what is their future ahead. That's a huge part of it. I am so passionate about who our community is, the diversity of our community, how inclusive our community is, how every member of the community is really anchored in an idea of pay it forward, where students are supporting students, students are supporting prospective students, alumni help students, alumni help alumni. And to get to help create and continue that culture really gives me a lot of drive. In my 12 years in CMC, I loved understanding each of the students, why, why this industry, why this function and how the MBA at Columbia is going to help them achieve their goals. I just now get to do it at the start of the journey which is so exciting and deeply collaborative kind of all along. The student success journey.
• 8:21
  Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. I mean, I think that's one of the reasons why I like this industry too is just seeing people as they enter this process and thinking about all the things that they're going to accomplish and yeah, it's just a lot. It's really rewarding. Yeah, I guess Next question I had for you is about, I feel like sometimes applicants don't fully understand what makes admissions officers tick. And so I wondered if you'd take me through like a misconception that you think applicants tend to have about either admissions officers or even just the admissions process.
• 8:49
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's like two pronged here. The first is that a lot of prospective students will say, well I'm non traditional, I don't have a business background, I don't have any finance. You don't have to have a business background, you don't have to have a finance background, you don't even have to have a quant background. We have teachers and opera singers and myself a journalist, military. They all thrive in our classroom, they thrive in our community, they thrive in their career search. You don't have to have one specific kind of professional background that is going to enable you to get into the school. We are looking for, for that rich fabric of backgrounds because you're all bringing something different to the classroom. As a non quantitative person coming in, I was not able in my learning team to really lead things like discounted cash flow or valuations. I was learning it and I was relying on my learning teammates to help continue to teach what I was learning in the classroom because it wasn't second nature to me. But I was the person who they had give the presentations to the whole cluster. I was the person who had eyes on every single PowerPoint that was submitted, every single group paper that was submitted. Because the strength I was bringing was in the communication, the strength I was bringing was in the editing and so understanding where you add value to your classmates, where you add value in the community, and then understanding what you also are needing to, to learn and to grow and to receive, and why the MBA for you? It's both ways. The other prong that I think of is the fact that applicants think we're looking for someone to fit a mold. And there is an old view where admissions officers would say, well, how are they fitting in with us? That's not something that I'm interested in. It's not something that we at CBS subscribe to. We're interested in, how are you going to enhance the CBS experience broadly? How are you going to enhance the classroom? How are you going to enhance the community? How are you going to co create not only your own experience, but those of others? Because the MBA experience is more encompassing than just, you know, a person fitting into a mold. I want you to make us better and I want you in your application to tell us, how are you going to enhance us as a community?
• 11:19
  Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You know, this story, the first part, the first prong you talked about is reminding me of. I remember I met very early on in Cleared Men. I met a woman who posted on our site thinking about going to business school, right. And her background was that she was running a theater company. And she wrote us a note and said, for my main essay, I'm going to write about an accounting internship I had right after college because the schools aren't going to be interested in this theater stuff. And I was like, wait a second, you know, you're running a theater company? Like there's so much, you know, amazing kind of managerial lessons in there. And she just hadn't. And so I think, yeah, you're right. People need to know that that kind of stuff really does matter.
• 11:58
  Speaker B: It really does matter. I mean, managing anything like that. That woman who posted on your site, she was highly entrepreneurial and she had to achieve, buy in from all kinds of people, cross functionally and otherwise. And those are real leadership skills that she can contribute in her learning team, in her cluster, in club experiences. And can she do, you know, maybe evaluation of a company? Maybe, maybe not. But does she know how to bring a team together and move that team in the same direction? Yes. And that is equally valuable.
• 12:33
  Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. So this is a little bit of a different question, I mean, because you haven't been in this role for what, I guess three years now. Right. But even still, the question I had is like, how has your thinking about admissions changed over the years? Guessing even when you were in career services, you had some exposure to admissions. And so I just wonder, you know, what's sort of different to you now versus maybe when you were originally kind of working at cbs.
• 12:59
  Speaker B: Yeah. Well, as many of you listening know, Columbia Business School now admits in a rounds process for our full time MBA prior to 2023, were you admitting in a rolling process? And so certainly my three years of tenure in admissions is dramatically different from anything that was before. What I have also brought though to the table in addition to the school's leadership, changing how the process of how we admit what I've also brought to the table is this understanding of careers and what you are doing for your summer impacts what your full time is going to be, impacts what your five year goal, what your ten year goal is going to be. And so what I had seen in CMC was that admissions would send over the data of what students would say in that 50 character question, what are you going to do post MBA? And I saw that it didn't align with what students sitting in my office were telling me they wanted to do. For example, the person who's going to return to their family business, they might be returning to their family business as their end goal post mba, but they actually want to do a summer internship in consulting or in a startup. And then they might actually want to go work in industry for one to three years post MBA before returning to their family business to run the family business because their family has decided they need to gain some industry exposure. And so we have added into our application question, what are your summer intentions for the the full time August program? Because you know that might be different than your post graduation. Even thinking about the sponsored consultant who's applying to us, you know, they're sponsored by one of the firms, they are contractually required to return to that firm upon graduation, but they're looking to do a summer internship in industry on the client side to gain experience. Maybe somebody's coming from a consulting background, but they've been all in the healthcare practice and they want to pivot their client work to be in retail. Well, they're going to want to use their summer to do a summer internship in retail and luxury goods. Most likely that's probably not coming through in that 50 character statement that admissions was asking. So by now asking, well, what are your summer plans?
• 15:19
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's great.
• 15:20
  Speaker B: That helps the career center really understand how they can best support, support the students in achieving their goal, their career goals.
• 15:27
  Speaker A: Yeah, so a couple of big shifts, I mean from you know, the kind of rolling to rounds and then the fact that, yeah, it's a great lens that you're bringing into this process. I know often like the heads of Career Services are kind of like, there's this attitude of like, we just get what the school kind of the admissions team, it gives us and we have to sort of figure it out from there. So this, they must love that you're in this seat. I don't know if you're still in touch with many of your peers. I presume you are in Career Services.
• 15:52
  Speaker B: Yes, no, I am. You know, having been 12 years in career management, you know, I absolutely love that office. You know, and our dean of Career management, she and I have a fantastic relationship. And you know, I think also what I've brought to the admissions office is, is now my team, the people who are reading the applications. I'm able to also share all of my learnings. You know, 12 years as a career advisor, I advised thousands of MBAs. You know, it was, it was 3,001 on one appointments annually. That's a lot, right? So, you know, thousands of appointments. And so I do have, you know, an awareness and sure, markets change, you know, preferences and career goals change, you know, class to class, and that's okay and that's expected. But there, there are some, you know, macro trends that have some state and, and so able to share that with admissions officers, which I guess, you know, also, Graham, in fairness, gets to your last question of, you know, what are we looking for? We're looking for an authentic, comprehensive story and the careers are part of that. You know, if you're telling us, you know, one thing in your 50 character statement and then your summer internship is completely different, and then your essay is yet a third thing. There's no through line, there's no. And then your interview maybe is something else. So help us see what your vision is. And if you are that sponsored consultant who wants to go from healthcare to, you know, retail client work, when you return back to your firm, tell us that and then have sort of everything, be consistent. We want to understand your why, but we are looking for that consistency as well.
• 17:35
  Speaker A: Okay, terrific. What's something that applicants tend to worry about far more than they should?
• 17:42
  Speaker B: One, having it all figured out. You do not need to have every single thing figured out. You do not need to have a perfect career roadmap despite, you know, having a through line in your story and having consistency. It doesn't mean it needs to be perfect. I said in my essays that I wanted to get into marketing and media. And I'm dean of admissions at a business school at a surface level, that is not marketing and that is not media. But what am I doing right now on this podcast? I'm communicating. I'm talking about Columbia Business School. There's an element of marketing that's incorporated in what we're doing right now. Right. Podcast is media. So, you know, there is still a through line there from what I talked about in my essays to what I'm doing now. And you just have to find it and talk about it. But it doesn't need to be perfect. There are going to be circuitous times throughout your career, so you don't have to have everything figured out. The second is it's really important to have room to evolve. You know, you're going to learn new things. That's part of the MBA journey. I didn't have it all figured out when I applied, not at all. So being open to new ideas, being open to. To areas that you had never thought about is really important. But if you anchor to, you know, what your original goals are, that will allow you to evolve and yet still have that through line, then the third area that people worry about are the quantitative skills. And related to that, the test.
• 19:15
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 19:16
  Speaker B: So, you know, if you have taken the test, whichever test, we accept the gmat, all variations of gmat, we accept. We accept the GRE and we accept the executive assessment, the ea. And so if you've taken the test a couple of times and you're generally getting the same scores and you're within our range, you're done with the test. Put the effort into your essays, Put the effort into your story, your why. Put the effort into getting to know us. If you have a test score that is above our median, you do not need to then go take it again. You're good. So I do think that applicants tend to myopically focus on that one thing, because it is more controllable in some ways. But if you've taken your focus test three times and you are 685 or higher? Three times. Stop. Yeah, you're done.
• 20:15
  Speaker A: Okay, good advice. Looking back over the students that you've admitted since you started in this role, what are some qualities that tend to distinguish those who, you know, make the most of the opportunities that are available during the mba?
• 20:30
  Speaker B: The knowing your why, this is the absolute number one thing, is to understand why are you pursuing an mba? Why are you pursuing an MBA at cbs? Why are you pursuing Insert industry, insert function, insert geography. What is your why? And that anchors you that has you have a purpose that does allow you to explore, but it also allows you to have a foundation amid the noise. There's going to be eight things all happening at the same time that you want to go to. FOMO is real. People are really afraid of missing out and you don't have to say yes to everything. And indeed you can't say yes to everything because the time doesn't allow it. So if you stay grounded to your why it will help you make the decisions about what to say yes to and what to say no to or what to be okay. Letting go. We already talked about leaving room. For example, exploration distinguished students intentionally do leave room to discover things they didn't know that they were excited about. For example, I really didn't take any finance classes. I was not particularly interested in taking higher level finance classes once I got out of the core curriculum. But there was a business of sports class that was a finance class and I'm a really passionate Yankees fan. And I was like, this seems really cool. I'm going to take it. And I'm sorry. Glad I did it. We actually our final project was doing evaluation of a sports team. Turned out it was the Cubs. And my professor, Sal Gallano, his firm Gallon of Partners had been had done the Cubs deal. And so when we were evaluating what the Cubs were worth, we actually came very close to what the sale price was. And we didn't know that it was the Cubs when we were doing it. And it was just, it was such an interesting class because his his connection to sports broadly, but baseball specifically, the amount of times he mentioned the A Rod deal in my class was impressive. And I know I'm dating myself on this, but you know, I wouldn't have had this really cool experience if I'd been like finance? No. I was like, oh, this seems interesting. Let me be open to it. Let me push myself out of my academic comfort zone and try it and then maximize the experience. Those who are successful both in the classroom, as we talked about in this case, but in the community and then even in the careers, they're crafting their adventure collaboratively rather than competitively. And they're staying grounded, but they're also looking how are you co creating that experience with the administration? How are you raising your hand to run a club or launch a club? How are you supporting your classmates in their own job search? One of my favorite days that I had at CBS was one time walking into a room and hearing one of the students who was recruiting for investment banking turning down an internship offer that they had gotten, and they were sitting next to one of their friends who was also recruiting for banking. And literally, as that first student hung up the phone with that particular bank, the second student's phone rang. And I thought that was the coolest thing ever, that this person was like, I know I don't want this job, but my, you know, my friend is here and they want it. And that person got the offer, like, almost immediately.
• 23:53
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 23:53
  Speaker B: And so I just, I think if you can maximize the experience not just for yourself, but for everybody, that really helps people stand out. It all goes back to your. Why? Why are you there?
• 24:05
  Speaker A: Okay. It's funny, I didn't know you were a big baseball fan. If you, if you were a regular listener to this show, you would know that I'm actually a Phillies fan, which maybe puts us a little bit at od, although we're not in the same league.
• 24:14
  Speaker B: So, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm okay with the Phillies. For those listening from Boston, I respect you. My grandmother was a Red Sox fan. I called her in 2004 at one o' clock in the morning when they won.
• 24:26
  Speaker A: Oh, that's nice.
• 24:27
  Speaker B: I disagree with your choice of baseball teams.
• 24:30
  Speaker A: Excellent. We actually had Sam Fuld, the general manager, one of the general managers of the Philadelphia Phillies, on the show because he was doing an executive mba. So we had him come on and talk about why someone in sports would, you know, go and do an executive MBA question for you, though this one's kind of interesting because you can tick a couple of boxes here because you went to Columbia Business School. And so my question is, when alumni come back to campus, which I guess you're doing every day because you're going to campus, but every day. But what's something that people tell you that they didn't fully appreciate while they were students, or what's something that you now appreciate more? You know? You know, now that you see it from the other side as a grad.
• 25:03
  Speaker B: Yeah. So the lifetime ROI of an mba, I think, is something that current students don't realize, but alumni very clearly do. You know, current students are really focused on that summer internship and that first postgrad job. They're focused on what is the ROI of the tuition that I'm paying and the opportunity cost that I'm enduring during my two years as a student. And how does that equate to the first job?
• 25:32
  Speaker A: Right.
• 25:33
  Speaker B: That's not really the ROI metric that alumni look at. Our alumni look at it over the arc of their career. Over the lifetime. And you know, as an mba, you will accelerate faster in your career versus those who don't have an mba. You're bringing management leadership skills to the table that those who don't have an MBA are not able to fully bring. You're able to see patterns better. You're able to understand the different functional roles within business and how they all work together. And so the art, you will grow quicker in your career with that mba. And sometimes at graduation, you might actually take a salary that's a little bit less than what you were making coming into School. But 10 years, 15 years later, you're going to be making, you know, X times more than had you not gotten that MBA in the first place and just stayed in your current role. So that's something that alumni really talk about, is that the life of time, return on investment is something to be more mindful of and that, you know, we as admissions should talk more about as well. And then the enduring network, for sure, I mean, the network opens professional doors for you during your time as a student for sure, but it opens those doors for you as well. 5, 10, 15, 20 years later. It also provides lasting mentorship. You know, a learning team member that you had from 15 years ago that maybe you haven't talked to in 15 years is going to take your phone call to help you navigate a complex work problem. So it might not even be about trying to get another job. It might just be like, you know, somebody who's doing this kind of work that you now have been asked to do in your current role and you just need somebody to talk through with it and they're going to take that phone call. And so having that network both to open doors for you, to job opportunities that you may not have had, but even more importantly to that mentorship that happens on the job, that's something that alumni really talk about. You know, for me, I have the privilege of coming into work every day into the school that I went to. And it is so exciting when alumni that I went to school with come back to campus and pop into my office unannounced. It's also really exciting to me to have alumni who are more recent, who I was their career advisor pop in. I go to all of the reunions, even not my own, because I'm so excited to see the former students that I advised, you know, some of them who are now 10, almost 15 years out of school and they are really heading up industry and some in some cases, but to have them come back and it's A privilege for me to have them say, you were part of my journey.
• 28:24
  Speaker A: Yeah. And yeah, I cannot agree more about. The ROI needs to be defined more broadly. Right now it's been reduced to this sort of like, how fast do I pay off this loan kind of thing. But in any event, all right, give me one stereotype about Columbia Business School that you would love to debunk.
• 28:40
  Speaker B: Columbia is not just a finance or consulting school. I think that is a stereotype. We have some pretty deep roots in tech. We have a very strong entrepreneurship community. The New York startup space is very strong and CBS is here and in New York. And the startup ecosystem in New York is really fueled by CBS alums. And so yes, our DNA is in finance. And yes, we have, you know, 35% of our students will go into consulting immediately post graduation. But that's not the metric. The metric, again, going to the sort of lifelong roi, it's not looking at what is it right at the point of graduation, it's looking at it more broadly because a lot of those people who go into consulting, they're doing so for a very short amount of time. Either they're returning because they're sponsored and have a two year commitment and then they're going to exit, or maybe they're going as a stepping path into something else. For example, if you want to be head of strategy for a streaming platform, likely you need to have had some consulting in your background to get to it. So that person who's super passionate about media and entertainment and streaming and wants to go to Netflix or Hulu or, or any of the platforms, they might go to a consulting firm and focus on media clients for three years and then exit into industry. And so, and you know, head of, head of streaming for Netflix is, is, is just as much a tech job as it is a strategy job.
• 30:18
  Speaker A: Right.
• 30:18
  Speaker B: And so, you know, really understanding that, that CBS is much more than a finance school, much more than a consulting school, I think is important. You know, as, as I mentioned, our startup ecosystem is exceptional. And particularly in New York, our startup ecosystem is exceptional. The trend started changing after the 2008 crash. We were very finance heavy prior to the crash. And then just naturally from student interest and market Trends, it evolved. 20% of our graduates are going into the technology industry property. But even beyond that, somebody who's a product manager at American Express, for example, they're being categorized as going into financial services. But a PM at amex is a tech job.
• 31:04
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 31:05
  Speaker B: So there's, there's been an evolution in a massive diversification the other thing is that the hiring companies at Columbia are much more beyond sort of the on campus recruiting, historical hiring method. Last year we had over 200 new companies participate in some sort of activity at our campus. Whether it was an event, whether it was, you know, a job posting, whether it was an on campus formal process and similar. There's a very long tail of hiring companies where they're hiring one of one, you know, and it's an N of one total anywhere. And that end is coming from cbs, which is very exciting as well. So a concentration at, you know, only a handful of firms. That's no longer the, the way of hiring, the way of employment. And CBS has, has adapted and is, is really leading in finding those companies that are hiring that n of 1 and ensuring that our students are able to, to be in those roles.
• 32:09
  Speaker A: Yeah, this perfect segue because that n of 1 comment for me, a lot of that has to do with New York City. And I wondered if you would just talk a little bit about what role does New York City play in the student experience at cbs.
• 32:23
  Speaker B: Yeah, well, every industry, every global industry is either headquartered in New York or has a base in New York for every company. And so the heads of those industries are always coming through New York. You know, that matters in the hiring context, as we were just talking about, but it also matters in the classroom experience. You may walk into your elective that has no more than 40 people in it, and your guest speaker of the day is a major CEO who was, you know, on the COVID of the Wall Street Journal that day. Right. And it's not always the big splashy keynote speaker that's talking to 300 people. It's walking into that elective of 40 people. And there's someone who is leading industry, who's in your classroom. And so you have that access. You also have that access for the professor of practice. We have an exceptional lineup of tenured faculty who are leading academic research across all industries and functions. We also have an exceptional roster of professors of practice who are currently industry leaders who are currently working, who are spending two hours once a week to teach an elective. And as we look at our menu of close to 300 electives, half of them are being taught by professors of practice because they're doing the work. They're doing the work during the day, and then they're talking about it with you in the evening or on a Saturday if it's an executive MBA course. So, you know, you really get this access to the forefront of talent, not only in the research with the professors, but really most importantly with the professors are practicing. You only can get that when you're in New York City, because they're all here in New York City. So that that unparalleled access makes it, you know, incredible. The other thing that I think New York plays into the student experience is in the community culture being. Because New York City is, you know, a melting pot of all ethnicities, all cultures and people coming from all over the world to be part of New York City. The same is also true of Columbia Business School. So we are between 35 and 40% for national students, international students at any given time, depending on the class year. And you. So you get that richness that's within the community, that's within the classroom as well. And so this culture that I talked about earlier, of paying it forward, of lifting everybody up, that also happens in the classroom, but it's happening on this perspective that's geographically diverse and everybody's bringing these different cultural experiences to the conversation. And so your networking circle widens, but also your understanding, your cross cultural understanding widens. And so it's really New York City as the melting pot for the world. You end up with Columbia Business School as this very rich culture that is international. And we're anchored to that. We're proud and continue to be anchored in that sort of 35 to 40% foreign national campus.
• 35:37
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I will say, just historically, we always see students coming to the United States for an mba, which many students around the world want to go to the US for an MBA because kind of the birthplace of the degree. They just inherently or, you know, just so often have Columbia on their list. Right. Because not only do they get to go to a terrific school, but they're also really excited about New York. Right. I mean, if you're going to move to America, like, New York's usually on people's bucket list of places to be.
• 36:02
  Speaker B: Yep.
• 36:03
  Speaker A: So. So, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
• 36:04
  Speaker B: Yeah. And you know, Graham, I'll also say too, for those who are coming to business school with a significant other, New York City has job opportunities for them in a way that perhaps other other programs who are not located in a major metropolitan city are not able to offer the significant others. And so I think, you know, that's for those of you who are listening who might be thinking about, you know, moving with a significant other or moving a family, New York offers them a lot of opportunity as well, just because everything is here in New York.
• 36:39
  Speaker A: Yeah, that makes sense. So I appreciate you going through all these questions, I know you're so busy, but I wonder if you could stay on for just another few minutes. We have these. These lightning round questions that I always like to do. So these are going to be kind of rapid fire. We'll just go through them. I always have fun with this. So the first one is coffee or tea?
• 36:55
  Speaker B: Coffee. 100% coffee. I stopped the caffeine at noon, but I've probably had three cups already today.
• 37:02
  Speaker A: Excellent. All right. Beach or mountains?
• 37:05
  Speaker B: Beach. I spent my summers growing up on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.
• 37:10
  Speaker A: Oh, wow.
• 37:11
  Speaker B: And I spent myself, you know, in a beach community. I. I find my peace, my joy, my anchor is always, especially on the Cape, is always at a beach. Mountains are lovely. It's a nice place to visit. But to find my calming place. The beach.
• 37:27
  Speaker A: The beach. All right. And I guess all those summers did not make you a Red Sox fan, despite being out on the gate.
• 37:32
  Speaker B: Well, okay, fine. Let's go there for a second. My father grew up in Boston and was a Red Sox fan. Oh. But my mother grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, and was a Yankees fan and was in love with Mickey Mantle.
• 37:43
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 37:43
  Speaker B: And my parents would watch the Yankee Red Sox games in the same house on two different networks because I grew up also in Connecticut, and so my mother would watch.
• 37:51
  Speaker A: Oh, that's so great.
• 37:52
  Speaker B: Yankees game on the yes. Network and my dad, Red Sox on nessen. I came from a divided household. They were happily married for 33 years. But I picked a side. I picked a side.
• 38:04
  Speaker A: There you go. All right. Morning person or night owl?
• 38:07
  Speaker B: My natural inclination is night owl. I am the mom of three daughters, and some of them are young, and so I have become a morning person out of necessity, by force.
• 38:19
  Speaker A: Yes, I know that feeling. What about a pet peeve that you
• 38:23
  Speaker B: have the split infinitive? And Star Trek fans might appreciate this. To boldly go is grammatically incorrect. To go is the infinitive. Yes, it should be to go boldly. To boldly go is a split infinitive, and it's grammatically incorrect. Also. That's a GMAT question.
• 38:41
  Speaker A: Oh, wow. All right, I'm gonna have to ask Dennis, our producer, to go back and pull out any split infinitives I might have used in this. In this episode. Okay. How about a comfort food?
• 38:49
  Speaker B: Chocolate? Doesn't matter. What form? Chocolate.
• 38:52
  Speaker A: Excellent. A guilty pleasure. You can't say chocolate.
• 38:57
  Speaker B: Oh, man. Yes, a guilty pleasure. If I. If I could just, like, hide in my room with the, like, shades down, door closed, and just, like, be on my phone and have no children bothering me, I would, I would feel very guilty and be very happy.
• 39:17
  Speaker A: All right, excellent. What about what's the best advice you've ever received?
• 39:21
  Speaker B: Be authentic. Be true to yourself. It goes back to the knowing your why up front. But when you are authentic to who you are, all of the rest of it is a lot easier to make decisions. But be authentic to yourself.
• 39:37
  Speaker A: Okay, what's one thing that applicants should stop doing immediately?
• 39:41
  Speaker B: Emailing follow ups. If you've updated an application in your applicant portal, you don't need to then copy, paste and email it to myself or a member of the team. We have it. We got it. It's the application update feature is there to ensure that your information gets seen. So you do not need to send multiple follow ups to make sure we saw something. We've seen it.
• 40:06
  Speaker A: All right, everybody. Note that that sounds important. All right, what about the best thing that you have read, watched or listened to recently?
• 40:16
  Speaker B: Okay. This is also a guilty pleasure. I am a Bridgerton fan. I will digest the entire Bridgerton series in one maybe max of two series sittings. So I very definitely love me some Bridgerton. I've currently just started the third season though of the Game of Thrones prequel.
• 40:40
  Speaker A: Oh.
• 40:41
  Speaker B: So original Game of Thrones I saw. But the prequel, so.
• 40:44
  Speaker A: Oh, House of, House of the Dragon.
• 40:46
  Speaker B: I think it's called House of the Dragon. Yes, House of the Dragon has dragged and so I saw the first episode of the third season so that I, I love it. It's also a lot to digest if you're watching it at 10 o' clock at night. So it takes me a while to watch it.
• 41:01
  Speaker A: Got it. Excellent. Well, I'm so glad that you made some time and that we could do this. You know, just thanks so much for, for joining us and yeah, just really appreciate your time, Tricia.
• 41:10
  Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
• 41:12
  Speaker A: So that's going to do it for this episode of the show. Thanks for tuning in to the Clear Admit MBA admissions podcast until please remember to subscribe, rate and review the show wherever you listen. We'll be back with more of these admissions director Q and A's as well as our regular Monday episodes of Wiretaps. So hope to see you all very soon.