Latest / Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast / MBA Wire Taps 420—Potential degree collector. Darden vs wait. INSEAD vs Stern’s Tech MBA.

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MBA Wire Taps 420—Potential degree collector. Darden vs wait. INSEAD vs Stern’s Tech MBA. · Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign.
• 0:17
  Speaker B: Welcome to the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. I'm Graham Richmond and this is your Wiretaps for Monday, April 21, 2025. I'm joined by Alex Brown from Cornwall, England. Alex, how are things going?
• 0:28
  Speaker A: Very good, thank you, Graham.
• 0:30
  Speaker B: So just a reminder, Alex is former admissions officer from the Wharton School and current Clear Admit community manager and podcaster. And you also teach digital marketing at some top MBA programs including Columbia and LBs, if memory serves. And for those of you who don't remember this stuff, I'm the co founder of Clear Admit and I also worked in admissions at Wharton where I first met you, Alex, and have an MBA degree from that program as well. But what's been going on in the world of MBA admissions this week? Anything exciting? Or is it, I mean, I guess I've seen some interview invitations coming, right, for round three.
• 1:01
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean interview invites for round three are rolling, rolling out. And you know, last week, LBs, Wharton Fuqua among those that are releasing those interview invites. And this upcoming week, actually we're seeing some of these deferred enrollment deadlines. So HBS has its two plus two, Wharton has its deferred admissions right. Application deadline. So clearly the signals are we're getting towards the end of the cycle. So typically the deferred admissions deadlines are right at the end of the sort of the cycle for the top program. So yeah, things are moving along. Graham.
• 1:43
  Speaker B: Yeah, and I just want to send some kind of congrats or whatever support to those who applied deferred enrollment because I'm trying to figure these are seniors juggling final exams in university and they're also getting together their applications for these deferred enrollment MBAs. So kudos to all those folks who did that and hopefully they get good news. We'll keep monitoring and reporting in each week. Alex, we, you know, as we get sort of into April here and we're now more than halfway through April, we have all these events in May that I've been talking about. And you know, the, the digital or virtual events that we're doing on May 6th and 7th and then again May 2021 are going to be fantastic. We usually have, it looks like we have five schools at each of those four events. So there are 20 schools joining us. They include Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, duke, insy at LBs. I mean it's just Columbia. The list goes on. It's sort of all the top schools. I usually emcee these. I think I'm going to do all four of them and you know, just talk with the schools about their application process. So you can join us by signing up@bitlyappoverview25. These are the perfect events if you're just kind of embarking on the application process and want to get to know these schools and their processes. And then in the middle of all that, as I've been saying, we're having our big event, the MBA Fair in Boston, and we have 24 or 25 schools now signed on to do that. Alex, I had a conversation yesterday with the head of recruiting over at Bain and Company, and they're going to come and do a panel at our event about consulting jobs. So, like, what does it mean to be a consultant? How does the recruitment process work into consulting? And much more. So that'll be a lot of fun. I cannot wait. We're going to have a panel on how to pay for business school and then several panels with admissions directors. You can sign up for the Boston event at Bit Ly. Where is it? MBAFAIR 2025. So that should be fun. I'm a little nervous, Alex, because there's, like, a lot to do still and we' only, I don't know what, three weeks or so out from this event, so I got a lot to do.
• 3:46
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, no, fantastic. And I know we talked yesterday in our company meeting about the Bain speaker for this big event, and you said they're quite favorable in terms of the climate for consulting hiring. So it'll be really interesting to. Well, I won't be at the event, but hopefully we're record the speech and.
• 4:12
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 4:12
  Speaker A: And really understand what that looks like from the perspective of one of the mbbs.
• 4:19
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I was really excited to hear her talk about this stuff and to be quite optimistic. So that was cool. Yeah. We will try to record these. I always say if you have any means of getting to Boston to join us for this event, it's going to be very worthwhile. I mean, you cannot meet all these top schools in one place anywhere. I mean, this is like the one place that they do it every year with us, so we're fortunate to be in charge of it. Other than that, Alex, over on the web, we did a really interesting article about Tuck, and it's sort of profiling three different graduates of Tuck's MBA program. And it's. They're all working in sustainability roles. So the first one is working in with like, a clean water solutions company. The other one works for the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care. And then the final Tuck grad is in clean tech at a place called Lumen Energy. So very interesting article. If you're someone who's kind of curious about sustainability type roles and wondering what how do MBAs kind of get into these types of roles? Just read the article. It's pretty interesting and honestly I didn't realize that this was a strength talk and clearly they seem to be doing pretty well with some of their grads in this domain. So pretty interesting.
• 5:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think this kind of stuff is absolutely fantastic. And to me, this is where top MBA candidates can make the most difference.
• 5:35
  Speaker B: Yeah. So head over to the site to check that out. We also continue to catch up with other alums from any number of top business schools. We talked with Renard, who's a University of Marilyn Smith grad from the class of 22 and he's working as a finance business manager at JPMorgan Chase. He is from Columbia, South Carolina. I was just there last week. So kind of funny. He went to Hampton University, studied finance in undergrad, and get this, before business school he was a legislative floor assistant in the US House of Representatives for about six years. So then he went off and did his mba and we asked him, okay, as a member of your alumni community, what piece of advice do you wish you had been given during your mba? And he said, be yourself always. Recruiters can tell when you are faking the funk and not being authentic. Mention your strengths, but shine light on your areas of opportunities. The willingness to learn and grow is very sought after. So what do you make of that?
• 6:34
  Speaker A: I love it when someone calls a weakness an area of opportunity. It's just such a positive point of view.
• 6:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's really good. Right? And I. No, I think that's genuinely great advice. So we also, we caught up with Peter, who's a Harvard Business School grad, class of 24, so very recent grad, and he's working in strategic operations at Disney Plus. Peter Hale is from New York City, went to Harvard for undergrad, so he's double dipping when he went to the business school as well. Studied economics at Harvard undergrad and before business school he had been working in investment banking but also had worked at Disney in strategic finance. And one thing that's interesting is sort of like, wow, he's a Disney rising up the ranks. Why did he go get an mba? He's already, you know, went to Harvard undergrad. So we kind of asked him like, why did you choose to go to business school and why hbs? And he said, I wanted to move into a role that centered around strategy and operations. So remember he was in finance. Right. So he's now totally in strategy and operations. And he says, I came from a finance background. I wanted to learn valuable skills to set me up for success in that type of role. HBS has deep connections in the media and entertainment world, especially with Disney. So that's it. So he's. It seems like he's off to the races at Disney plus, which is their streaming network. But yeah, interesting stuff from Peter at hbs.
• 7:54
  Speaker A: Very good. And it's really good to hear that the real rationale for going for the NBA, given the outstanding credentials they already have. So, yeah, so, yeah, let's really understand strategy. Let's really understand operations so that we can execute.
• 8:12
  Speaker B: Yeah. And there are a few professors at HBS who know a little bit about strategy. Some very famous ones over the years.
• 8:19
  Speaker A: Yeah, I would reckon. Is that where Clayton Christiansen comes from?
• 8:23
  Speaker B: Yeah, he was there.
• 8:24
  Speaker A: Yeah. I assume he's somewhat strategy, but I know that the innovator's dilemma is I reference it all the time, but it's classic.
• 8:35
  Speaker B: Yeah. And then the last candidate that we caught up with or graduate that we caught up with is Taylor. And she went to Yale SOM and graduated back in 23. So she's a couple years out now working in product management at Microsoft. Her hometown is Bridgewater, New Jersey, not far from where my folks live. So shout out to Bridgewater. Also, she went to Rutgers University and studied industrial engineering as an undergrad, worked as a consultant for Deloitte for about four years, but with a focus on government and public services. And we asked Taylor, what piece of advice do you wish you had been given during your mba? And she says, during my mba, I quickly learned that people have diverse motivations for pursuing an mba, ranging from prestige to a new job to a career break, to moving for love. If you aren't careful, it can be easy to get swept up in other people's goals. I'm really glad that I defined my MBA North Stars. And every time I made a decision, I asked myself if it aligned with my goals. This helped cut down on the FOMO comparison traps and other social life pressures that exist at school. So great advice from Taylor, I think.
• 9:42
  Speaker A: Yeah, fantastic.
• 9:43
  Speaker B: Yeah, I love these. I mean, not that the real human students are not also interesting, but the real humans alumni. It's great because they've done the mba. They're usually a couple years into the workforce and they have some wisdom to impart. And it's just wonderful to read.
• 9:57
  Speaker A: It's absolutely fantastic. And a big kudos to Lauren on our team or whoever came up with these concepts and stuff. Absolutely brilliant.
• 10:06
  Speaker B: Yeah. So no, it's been a lot of fun with these pieces. One other thing I wanted to talk with you about, Alex, before we do our candidates this week is we got career reports from a couple of schools in Los Angeles. Those being UCLA Anderson and USC Marshall. They're a little late out of the gate. I mean, we've talked about career reports mostly it was kind of back earlier in the year, even last fall, but they're out now. So let's start with UCLA Anderson and as we typically do, I'll give you the numbers and you can weigh in. They had 313 grads in the class at UCLA, class of 24 and 273, or roughly 87% of them were seeking employment. Now 61% of those seeking had job offers by graduation. That number was 75% last year. And 77.7% had received an offer by three months of graduation. That's actually 10% lower than it was last year because it was 87 last year. Now they did share a statistic of what percentage had a job within six months and that's up to 85%. So those are the sort of hiring stats in terms of the salaries. They had an average base salary of $146,000 and a median of $142,000. Last year they only published the median and that was $150,000. So a little bit down a few thousand dollars off from last year. Consulting in terms of the industries consulting led the way 24.9%. That's down slightly from 27% last year they sent 23.4% into technology. That's off slightly from 25.8% last year. They sent 17.7% into financial services. That's up from 13.9% last year. They sent 9% into healthcare. We don't even have figures on that last year because it wasn't in the top five kind of areas. So that's been obviously leapt onto the scene. And then the last category is entertainment and media. As you might expect for Los Angeles based school, they sent 8.6% into that domain. That's up slightly from 8.2%. The last thing I'll share with respect to UCLA is the kind of geography and regional placement data. So they sent 67.5% of their graduates into California. Jobs in California. That's down slightly from 70.8% last year. They sent 9.6% into the Northeast. That's up about a percent from last year. They sent 5.7% to other west coast destinations. I guess that's, you know, mostly probably Seattle, but it could be Portland. So Oregon, Washington state, et cetera, maybe Arizona. They sent, let's see, 3.3% into the Southwest. That's pretty much unchanged. 1.4% to the Mid Atlantic, that's down about 2%. And then they just sent 1% each into the Midwest and the south, and those are pretty much unchanged. So any thoughts on UCLA's numbers?
• 13:07
  Speaker A: Yeah, the numbers seem to reflect what we've seen through, you know, across the board at other top MBA programs. We're in a tougher hiring climate for top MBAs. So the percent of folks with job offers, et cetera, et cetera, sort of reflects that as well as the slight drop in the average or median salaries and so forth. And again, like other programs, finance has gone up a little bit and consulting and tech have sort of shrunk a little bit. And it doesn't surprise me that the majority of folks are alums going into California because as we've talked a lot of times on this show, even the top MBA programs are quite regionally focused. And, you know, you go to UCLA Anderson and USC Marshall if you want to work in Los Angeles as an example.
• 14:07
  Speaker B: Yeah. So. And it is interesting. I mean, I will say that technology number of 23.4% is pretty strong. Right. So, yes, it's down a little bit, but we look at other schools like it's not a bad number.
• 14:18
  Speaker A: You know, it's a.
• 14:19
  Speaker B: It's a. But, but yeah, they have this, you know, as you say, they have that, you know, nice kind of balance. And yeah, a lot of jobs in California. And I think that the entertainment and media category is obviously big for them, too.
• 14:32
  Speaker A: And just remind me how many folks were looking for a job.
• 14:37
  Speaker B: So the percentage was.
• 14:39
  Speaker A: Let's see, I got the percentage, but what was the raw number?
• 14:42
  Speaker B: Oh, it's 273.
• 14:43
  Speaker A: 273.
• 14:44
  Speaker B: So out of 313. So presumably. And actually, I have the data here, but of that group that wasn't seeking, a bunch of them were starting their own companies. Obviously people are sponsored. So that's what that is. Last bit here we've got USC Marshall, and I don't have last year's numbers for them. I guess they must have published their report too late last year, and we didn't pick up on it. So I don't have them in front of me, but I have this year's. So 80% of the graduating MBAs at USC Marshall had full time employment within three months of graduation. The average base salary for the class was $144,000. Average signing bonus, 32,000. So similar. I mean they had actually slightly higher employment rate than ucla. Base salary is just like a tick below, I guess it looks like if we're looking at the averages. So on the kind of industry side of things, 28% into consulting, 19% into technology, 13% into financial services, 9% into consumer packaged goods, and then 9% into media entertainment and interactive gaming. So those are the industries. And the last bit of data for USC Marshall, class of 24 is the Geo location. So we'll say let's see, West Coast. 81% of their graduates landed in the West Coast, 8% to the Northeast, 3% to the Midwest, 3% to Mid Atlantic, 3% to the Southwest and 1% to the South. So any thoughts on USC?
• 16:18
  Speaker A: Do you know the number of folks looking for a job?
• 16:21
  Speaker B: No, that, you know, it was not in the piece that we did and I presume that's because maybe they're not. Yeah, this is the thing. So the schools have to report certain stats, you know, like average salary and these industry and geographic kind of percentiles. But they can be quite cagey with like, well, how many people were looking like. It seems like they're not all as transparent. So I don't have that data in front of me. No.
• 16:43
  Speaker A: Yeah. Do we know what the class size is for Marshall?
• 16:46
  Speaker B: Well, we should. I have to look it up. It's a smaller program for sure. Right, yeah.
• 16:50
  Speaker A: So that's what I'm getting at because you know, if you look at these numbers, just on the face of them, actually USC and UCLA are very comparable, give or take a couple of thousand dollars here on the median salary. Maybe a slightly higher concentration on the west coast for usc. But again, it looks qu. Similar. Yeah, there's a bit of a switch, I think. Slightly higher percentage finance for UCLA and maybe a slightly higher percentage in some other area for usc. So they're very comparable. But I'm presuming that Anderson's numbers are coming from a larger base that is a larger class size.
• 17:38
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So. So 3313 UCLA grads, as we said, and they're. And, and it's. It. Well, I have the data from the most recent class of this, which is 210. Yeah. Now that's the class that's still, you know, just started this past year. But it's probably similar.
• 17:52
  Speaker A: Right.
• 17:52
  Speaker B: So it's 200 or so students.
• 17:54
  Speaker A: Yeah, so. So basically, USC is two thirds the size and producing similar numbers. But my point is more so. So you'll get this argument, you know, why is, you know, traditionally Anderson considered in a higher tier than usc? And even in some rankings, they flip it around, there's no doubt about that. But I think one of the reasons why Anderson typically has that slightly stronger reputation is the size and the scale of their student body and alumni network. So it's easier to keep, let's say, let's just look at, let's say, average gmat, which is completely irrelevant to this conversation, but it makes my point. If you've got two schools with an average GMAT of, let's say, 720, if one of those schools has that from a student body of 100 and the other school has it from a student body of 10, well, the school with the student body of 100, you know, that's more impressive. And that example is a complete exaggeration, obviously. But my point is, I think one of the reasons that Anderson is perennially considered in that higher tier is it's just got that larger student body, so there's more sort of resources associated with it, et cetera, et cetera.
• 19:22
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I will say these are two schools that do very well in this domain of media and entertainment, as you would expect. Salaries are pretty good, I think, you know, with a lot of schools, the hiring numbers are down in terms of, you know, the percentages. But I, after talking to the Bain woman, I'm kind of thinking, wow, maybe we're actually going to start to come out of this, because it depends on the industry. I think consulting might be heading in the right direction because of all the kind of craziness happening in the world with tariffs and artificial intelligence. And the companies are in crisis and they need help and trusted advisors. Harder to say what's happening on the tech side, other than maybe some jobs are being eliminated. But. But I think luckily, MBAs might be best positioned. At least MBAs who are comfortable with AI, I think could be very well positioned. And so I'm still optimistic about the role of kind of MBAs going forward. I think if you're a coder, it's a little more. It might be a little more challenging as we've been seeing some of these tools take that work and do it in seconds. So in any event, yeah, this is interesting, but, yeah, both schools are now in.
• 20:26
  Speaker A: You can say that, though. But I can go to ChatGPT, use their deep research tool and do an analysis on your business in about, you know, 15 minutes. And it's.
• 20:35
  Speaker B: Right.
• 20:36
  Speaker A: It's a really good report.
• 20:37
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. Yes.
• 20:39
  Speaker A: And that's the legwork that a lot of these analysts will. Would be doing. Right. So I'm super interested to hear what our Bain speaker has to say about all this.
• 20:50
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 20:51
  Speaker A: But this combination of MBA that really understands AI and how to deploy AI is going to be really important. We talked last week on the show, I think, or the week before about Wharton's new major in AI.
• 21:06
  Speaker B: Right.
• 21:07
  Speaker A: And you know, I think Kellogg has that program mbai, which is probably aligned very well quite similarly. And I think these types of programs are going to become more and more important.
• 21:20
  Speaker B: Yeah. And don't forget Cornell Tech and NYU, Stern Tech. They have these like one year MBAs that are very much oriented around tech, so.
• 21:27
  Speaker A: Yeah, but I think they need to reposition them. Don't just call them Cornell Tech, Cornell AI, like mbai, what, Whatever. But I mean, tech's quite broad. But the real significant shift.
• 21:41
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 21:41
  Speaker A: Is. Is definitely on the AI side.
• 21:44
  Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. So we'll see how it all unfolds. Anyway, that's the kind of news and notes from the site we've been rambling on. But now it's time to talk about our candidates. Unless there were any housekeeping items that you had.
• 21:55
  Speaker A: Alex, let's kick on.
• 21:57
  Speaker B: All right, so this is WireTap candidate number one. So our first candidate this week comes from an ApplyWire entry and this person actually posted quite some time ago and has been kind of corresponding with us. And you know, they have six schools on the target list. Those schools are Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard, mit, Wharton and Yale. They've been working in accounting. They have about three years of experience in that domain doing things like office audit, advisory and corporate finance. They're thinking about investment banking after business school and then possibly private equity after that. They've got companies like bank of America, Credit Suisse, Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Bain Capital on the list and they took the GMAT and they had a 720. That's the old form. So they must have known quite some time ago that they're thinking about business school. They have a 3.97 GPA from undergraduate and they're located in Boston and they're ideally going to land in New York or Boston after business school. But it gets more interesting. They have an undergraduate degree in accounting followed by a master's degree in accounting with a 3, 9. Okay. They've worked for both Deloitte, PwC, and so they have all this kind of, you know, very numbers oriented experience. But then get this in their spare time while working recently they've been pursuing a master's in finance and they're now looking to apply for an MBA to transition out of accounting into buy side finance. And they're expecting, as I said, investment banking right out of business school. So that's, that's the background. And they, they did write to ask us, I believe they asked us a question, which is that I guess they took the GMAT again because they had that 720, but you know, they haven't applied yet and they're thinking maybe they could get a better score. So they took it again and they got a 665 on the GMAT Focus edition or you know, just the regular GMAT now at this point. And it's, it's like the same percentile as the 720 that they had, but the score is a bit more balanced than before. So they're wondering, you know, as they go to apply, Alex, they're wondering, should they share both scores? You know, like they're thinking, you know, does it make sense to tell a school that they took the two different versions of the exam? And you know, the old exam has the benefit of the analytical writing assessment. And so that was the question. But I also wanted to know just what do you think about their profile?
• 24:20
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, to answer that question, I mean we can go back and forth on that particular question. Just quickly. I think there's really little harm in submitting both test scores. It shows sort of resilience, perseverance, like, yeah, really wanting to show your best. It shows good balance and so on and so forth. So I don't really see a downside to doing that. Graham, do you?
• 24:45
  Speaker B: I do not. I mean, I think it's, you know, as they pointed out, this current score is a little more balanced. I also think there's a little bit of leeway with the new GMAT scores in terms of, you know, I think schools are still kind of getting their head around like what is the 665 on this test and.
• 25:01
  Speaker A: Right.
• 25:02
  Speaker B: So yeah, I think there's no harm in setting that new score for sure.
• 25:05
  Speaker A: Yeah. So we'll park that one and confirm what I wrote on Apply Wired. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to bring that to wiretaps, just to make sure I was on message for that. Yeah, this person's obviously very smart and you know, they've got, you know, really strong education. They're going from, you know, they're wanting to sort of transition their career from an accounting auditing sort of focus to sort of the, the you know, deal making type stuff, going to investment banking and then even possibly onto the buy side. I think they need to go all in focusing their short term goal on investment banking and so forth and then sort of try to navigate their way to the buy side. I think one of the potential concerns that they're going to need to overcome Graham, is this notion and again we talked about this before we came on air but I had already made this note that they don't want to come across as simply becoming being a degree collector. Their rationale for pursuing the MBA does make good sense, there's no doubt about that. But at the end of the day this will be their third master's degree. Right, right. So that really, you know, some adcom will be reviewing it and say this, this person just needs to get out there and work and focus on work rather than simply getting another degree. So they've got to overcome that potential BIA potential stigma. I mean clearly they're academically very strong. They got a 397 undergrad and I assume their master's degree probably at 40 or 39 or something. So there's no equivocation about have they got the smarts and so forth. But they don't want to come across as a degree collector and they also need to establish the differentiation of what an MBA will provide them because clearly the whole finance curriculum in the MBA is probably going to be a bit redundant. The accounting curriculum is going to be a bit redundant. So, so, so they're going to need to overcome that potentially too.
• 27:20
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 27:21
  Speaker A: And you know, if they can show, you know, through some of their other interests outside of work and academics some of their personality and other interests I think that will really help their overall profile because I have no doubt this person is going to do really well in the classroom in an MBA program. Program. But what about all the outside activities and their contribution to clubs and various other things? Just make sure that those aspects are there too and it's all tied to their goals. And really why the mba why now is super important in the context of the fact that this would be their third master's degree.
• 28:07
  Speaker B: Yeah, I could not agree more. So yeah, my fears with this candidate are degree collector lacking outside activities. It seems like this part time masters in finance has taken up a lot of their spare time and they. As it would, yeah, as it would, yeah. And they do some volunteer Consulting, But I'm looking for, like, sort of activities that counter the good with numbers, not with people stereotype that someone who's like an accountant might end up labeled with. And so especially someone who's, you know, accounting undergrad, accounting masters, master's in finance. Like, I want to see that they, I don't know, like making sushi on the weekends or something just totally different. Or that they're, you know, in an improv theater troupe or something. Something just that really counters that good with numbers, not with people narrative. Right. So. But yeah, I. I mean, I think they can do it, and I think they should apply to top schools. They have stellar grades. GMAT's good. It's not off the charts, but I think it's good enough given where their grades are. But as you say, justify why you're getting all these degrees, why you need the mba, and what, you know, what you do in your kind of personal life that makes you interesting. But otherwise. Yeah, this is. I mean, they. They have the ingredients. They just need to. Yeah. Make those cases that we've outlined.
• 29:19
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 29:20
  Speaker B: All right, so I want to thank them for sharing their profile. Let's move on, though, and talk about wiretaps. Candidate number two. So our second candidate this week comes from a decision wire entry that you've picked, Alex. And this person a applied to business school. They applied to Columbia, Duke, Kellogg, and Darden. And they wanted to start in the fall. They ended up just getting one offer. They got into Darden and they got a little bit of scholarship money, $20,000. So got into one of the schools that they targeted. They want to work in consulting after business school, and they're thinking, you know, MBB type consulting. They had a 740 on the GMAT and a 3.77 and GPA. This is an international candidate. They note that they will have three years of experience upon matriculation to business school and that they are conflicted between going to Darden versus trying again next year with a focus on M7 schools. So, Alex, what do you make of this?
• 30:18
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, what's their level of risk tolerance? I guess because they've already got a good offer. Right. I mean, let's be frank. Darden's sort of reason to be is consulting is a really good career path coming out of DART and MBB and so forth. So. And if they wait another year and, you know, target M7 more effectively, hopefully, then they're delaying their sort of progression by a year, potentially. Right. So starting that sort of post MBA career gets Delayed a year year. So I'm not sure that it makes an awful lot of sense. But then you look at their profile and as you said Graham, they've got super numbers but their work experience is on the shorter side. So you could say, well actually there's quite a lot of potential scope for development over the additional year that could improve their overall candidacy because they were rejected by Kellogg this time around. So they've really got to do some self introspection to figure out am I really going to be able to move the needle and apply round one next season as a reapplicant and first time applicant, I guess to some other schools and, and make an impact or should I take what I've already got, which is actually pretty good. So I think it is a dilemma and it depends on their tolerance for risk, I guess.
• 32:05
  Speaker B: Yeah. Our friend Anand 10646, who's a great member of our community and comments frequently on these posts, asked a lot of really good questions of this candidate because for example, we don't know if they interviewed at any of these M7 type schools that they were rejected from. And that might give us some clues. Right. And I think as you point out, they don't have a ton of work experience. And so I could see someone saying, hey look 7:43 7 reapply next year, go for the very best programs on the planet. And I would say, geez, if you're looking to work in consulting at a place like McKinsey, well, look at the data and the data would suggest that you might want to add Booth to your list. You might want to add Tuck to your list. You could look at a Wharton. There are schools that are not on their list for some reason that they really could be. They could cast, as you say, a wider net met as a reapplicant. And assuming that there's nothing weird in their profile like that, it really is just a question of lack of experience. They'd be all the better positioned applying this next time out. With that said, as you point out at the top of this discussion, Darden's a great school, really lovely close knit community in a great setting and they're really good at training people to be consultants. And I say not only are they good at placing people, but I think their curriculum is really well suited because of its reliance on the case method to just cranking out really effective consultants. So they're not going to go wrong going to Darden. It's just that part of me does feel like, wow, you might benefit from additional work experience before you rush off to do the mba. So that's just what's kind of eating at me a little bit. But obviously they have a great option. So if they don't want to take the risk, I would just take the offer at Darden and go.
• 33:49
  Speaker A: So which would you do?
• 33:51
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's tricky. I would love to know more about the work that they've done, kind of pre mba. And I also would like to have a better understanding of what they're hoping to do post consulting because that, that could guide things too and might shape my views differently. Right. So yeah, it's, you know, because each school has its own strengths and if we can look beyond that first job, it might be interesting to know like are they obsessive about healthcare? Do they want to work in that domain or is it, you know, clean tech or is it, I don't know, venture capital like that. Then, then different doors might open up at different schools. So yeah, it's a tough one.
• 34:23
  Speaker A: I think they should go to Darden.
• 34:25
  Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. All right. So you're going to send them off to Darden. Well, I want to thank them for sharing their dilemma with us.
• 34:29
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 34:31
  Speaker B: Let's turn our attention towards wiretaps. Candidate number three. So our final candidate this week comes from a decision wire entry that Alex picked out. Alex, this person applied to Cornell, Duke, Insead and Stern and they ended up getting into insead with a $20,000 scholarship. And they also got into Stern but with no money. The Stern admit, if memory serves, is the NYU Tech mba. So it's the one year version which is consistent with Insead also being a one year program. They are looking at either consulting or tech jobs after business school. And they mention, you know, McKinsey, but they also have Ernst and Young and Execration Venture on their target list. And on the tech side it's, you know, pretty much usual suspects. Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle. They have a 645 on the GMAT and a 3.9 GPA. This candidate is located in Taiwan and they, they don't know what to do. I mean, they basically say with Insead the job market is uncertain right now, especially in consulting, so they're a little worried about that. And they also say there's no work visa provided when you go to Insead. And I think what they mean by that is, you know, if you get a degree in the EU and I guess possibly in Singapore at one of INSEAD's campus, those markets don't automatically give you the way The UK does or the US this sort of option to work for a year or up to three years in the U.S. i think it's two years in the U.K. so that's not there. So they're a little worried about do I secure a visa? And also is the job market strong enough for me to get that job? In consulting with NYU Tech, they said this will be insanely expensive due to the exchange rate. Of course Trump's helping to lower, lower the value of the dollar. But, but yes, it's saying it's very expensive. And they also say US Visa policies feel very unstable right now and I guess their third option is to start their own business and they say that's high risk. They don't have an mba. If things don't work out, what do they do? Go back to $30,000 U.S. you know, 30,000 U.S. dollar job. So yeah, this is tricky. Alex, I know you didn't really want to be the one that weighs in on this, but do you have any thoughts like just high level here?
• 36:43
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean obviously. Well, not obviously, but I'd ask you to weigh in on it on, on decision wise. I thought you'd have some insight, especially on the INSEAD side. But, but you know, I think as again we talked about coming on to the show this morning, I, a lot probably depends on where they're originally from, what their citizenship is, where they really desire to work post mba, whether it's back in their region, they want to come to Europe or the US So some of these issues are really going to affect, I think the overall decision making. Right. So are they originally from Taiwan or as you said, are they from India and moving around and so on and so forth. But yeah, I mean, quite honestly, Graham, I do think it's a very hard decision without really knowing their own personal circumstance.
• 37:41
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I, you know, I pointed out to that. Yeah, I asked them right away, I'm like, well where are you from originally? Like where do you have citizenship? Where can you work? Because if the only markets you can work in are markets where the salaries are very, very low compared to, you know, the tuition you're going to pay, that could be challenging if you're unable to, you know, get a visa or land a job in one of those high paying markets. So I asked them that, they haven't responded. But I also pointed out that, you know, benefit of Stern is the Stem opt visa, so you could initially work in the usa. And I actually would argue that even with all the uncertainty with Trump, I'm less worried about that going away. Like, I don't, I mean, he, he has said things on record and granted, he, he does go back and forth on almost anything he says, but he's been very consistent about wanting kind of, you know, the kind of educated, you know, kind of workers. Right. So he hasn't touched that yet. I, I don't know that that's going to go away. And I think somebody could probably assume if they go to Stern, they can stay in the US for at min and most likely three years to work. So that's a possibility. And I do recognize that costs will be really high in New York and the tech MBA is a bit more specialized and siloed, so it would be most likely into a tech role. But in any event, that's the Stern side. And then for insead, I was like, wow, this will be probably a more international network and a better footprint in both Europe and Southeast Asia. So there could be less risk there if this person could return to Taiwan and work for a big multinational or something. And I'd argue that it's less tech focused than obviously Stern's tech mba. So those are my thoughts. I think. Part of me says they're going to regret if they walk away from this. I think they're going to regret it in the long term. I really think that if you work hard, most MBAs land a job and make some serious dollars. So I would say I'm kind of inclined for them to take one of them, but it is tricky as to which one.
• 39:35
  Speaker A: Yeah. And again, it sort of really depends on their own personal circumstance, which we don't fully understand. But I think your advice and the way you contrast the Stern and INSEAD is very good.
• 39:50
  Speaker B: Yeah, I want to thank that person for sharing their dilemma. Hopefully we have helped and not made it even harder for them to decide. But in any event, Alex, thanks. As for picking these out, let's do it again next week, if you're willing.
• 40:02
  Speaker A: Very good. Stay safe, everyone. Take care.